Nate and Mandie Fleming never thought they’d live in Ohio.
The pair grew up, fell in love, and got married in Oregon. They’d always had a deep appreciation for their home state and planned to live out their lives as Oregonians, but a few years back, outside circumstances led them to set up shop in Springfield, Ohio.
Their custom lighting business, Velorossa Designs is on South Fountain Avenue and has been delighting clients in Springfield with innovative, quirky furniture and lighting pieces made up of artistically repurposed materials since 2016.
“The shop is organized chaos,” says Mandie, 37. “We save the scraps and incorporate it into other things. That’s our Oregonian spirit.”
The Flemings say they could not be happier with the reception they’ve received from the Springfield community, personally and professionally.
Hatch Artist Studios was one of the first to commission a Velorossa piece, almost immediately upon the Flemings’ arrival. It can be seen hanging in the stairwell.
Velorossa was also commissioned to create the whisk-like pendant lamps adorning Le Torte Dolci bakery as well as design and install lighting for the new COhatch the Market space.
In addition to local businesses, the historic homes of Springfield have, of late, benefitted from Nate and Mandie’s expertise in the name of preservation. The couple has recently delved into restoring and rewiring old fixtures as a result of connecting with friends and neighbors trying to rehab their homes. Backed by a UL listing for lighting safety, Nate, a certified electrician, and Mandie, an experienced welder, are able to bring lighting elements of long ago up to current safety standards, allowing the time-worn components to shed their vintage light on a new era in Springfield.
The Flemings live in one of Springfield’s historic homes on South Fountain, along with their two children, Jack, 12, and Annie, 10. They are slowly attempting to restore the 3,000-square-foot beauty, complete with a tower, to its former glory.
“We’re that crazy family that owns a business together and works on their house together and homeschools together,” admits Mandie, with a laugh. “This month it is officially three years that we’ve been here.”
Nate and Mandie are proud Springfield residents, and are beyond pleased with their home, business, and surrounding community — but how did these Oregon transplants end up here? The tale of what brought this family to Springfield begins with a recession, involves legalized marijuana, and ends with a strangely answered prayer.
Hitting rock bottom
The Flemings married in late 2003. In December of 2007, Mandie was recovering from a difficult first pregnancy. Nate was working as a second-year electrical apprentice and was a member of the union.
“That’s when the market dropped out, and there was no work for any construction workers, and so we really scrambled around. I couldn’t get a license, obviously, because I hadn’t finished my apprenticeship,” says Nate, 39. “We hit rock bottom.”
While he was able to find work sporadically by traveling around for jobs, resourceful Nate also tried to pad their income. He’d always loved tinkering with cars and was good at it. He began to work on flipping vehicles in between his other work opportunities. There was just one hitch – he needed a trailer and only had a towrope.
“He couldn’t get the really good deals, because all the cars had to have four moving wheels to be able to tow,” recalls Mandie. “And so, he convinced me, that spring after our son was born, that I should go enroll in the local community college and take welding classes. He couldn’t because he’s sitting on the union books. I enrolled in the community college so I could build a trailer so he could get better deals on cars.”
It was around this time that Mandie, who still humbly hesitates to call herself an artist, began eyeing parts that were to be scrapped after Nate had worked his magic, merging two vehicles into one, sellable car. She says she’s always had a knack for crafting, and was inspired by the interesting shapes of the pieces left lying around. She began making sculpture out of them.
While he enjoyed Mandie’s art, electrician Nate quickly tired of the many sculptural works that accumulated around their small home. He told her they must have more purpose in order to stay. He took to the task of wiring them, transforming them into sculptural lamps.
At first, the lamps were merely holiday presents, but after positive reviews from friends and family, Nate and Mandie started consigning them as art pieces and approaching store owners about buying lamps.
“We did everything wrong! We didn’t know anything about the lighting industry. All the things they say you shouldn’t do were all the things we did,” admits Mandie. “And then, finally we actually got a UL listing and became an actual light maker.”
Leading up to investing in this fairly expensive licensure, the couple had (on the advice of an artist friend) traveled around hawking their wares at juried art fairs around the West Coast. They gleaned both business savvy and a sense of belonging through networking at these events. And by viewing the collections of other artists, they began to notice their own, oddly-inspired work was actually on trend. This built their confidence.
Nate had still been traveling to different electrical jobs within the union while Mandy held down the fort, working on welding new pieces. When Nate returned from a trip, he would spend countless hours wiring them. Nate was away so often and had to work so hard when he returned that one day Mandie finally said to him, “I love you. I don’t want to be a single mom.”
It was at this time the pair decided to thrust all of their efforts toward their burgeoning business. But at that point, they found they needed to look elsewhere in order to grow.
The legalization of marijuana in Oregon in 2016 had spiked warehouse and shop rental prices drastically within a matter of months. The Flemings’ hopes of expanding their lighting business seemed squelched in a state now focused (almost overnight, it seemed) on recreational tourism and grow houses.
“Rent was skyrocketing and businesses were getting pushed out,” says Nate.
They thought about moving to other parts of Oregon that were more affordable, but leaving the state was not, initially, a consideration.
“In no way whatsoever had we ever thought about moving outside of the state, much less Ohio,” offers Mandie.
But then, through a mutual connection, Nate and Mandie were introduced to Doug Frates, a glassworker in Springfield, Ohio. The Flemings were looking for someone to make glass components for their pieces, and Frates was seeking someone to wire his glass pieces into lights.
A friendly working relationship soon grew between Doug Frates and his then-wife, Heidi, and the Flemings. Before long, Heidi called and asked whether Nate and Mandie knew of anyone interested in renting warehouse space in Springfield. When they inquired about pricing, the Flemings’ jaws hit the floor.
“When she told us how affordable everything out here was, we were like, ‘Well, let’s look this up!’” says Nate. “Where is this again? Springfield, Ohio (because we lived in Springfield, Oregon)?”
While the coincidence of considering a move from one Springfield to another was interesting enough, Mandie took a spiritual gleaning from the turn of events, having prayed recently for guidance. She paused to find meaning and consider the possibilities of permanent changes to their family and social life. Nate took to the internet to check out housing prices. He was intrigued. She was skeptical.
‘Out here, it feels like we’re living’
In November of 2016, the Flemings flew out to stay with Doug and Heidi Frates for a week and check out Springfield.
“’Just to see how bad it was,’ was my phrasing,” says Mandie. “But, every time I had a consideration, it was like, ‘Well, here’s your answer and it’s way better than you thought it was!’ ”
During their visit, Hatch Artist Studios hosted an art walk. Nate and Mandie attended, and met many people who made them feel right at home.
“Everybody was just really supportive of us coming. On the West Coast, it’s just like, unless you are a very large business that’s going to bring millions into a place, you get no welcoming committee. It was shocking,” Mandie admits.
The following spring, the Flemings took a huge leap — selling their home, loading two U-Hauls, leaving friends and family behind, and moving across the country.
While Mandie acknowledges that she still misses Oregon, she feels like she has traded up in terms of lifestyle and freedom to travel.
“The cost of living here is so low that I can spend more time on the Oregon coast than I could when I was living in Oregon,” she says. Since moving to Springfield, the Flemings have already traveled to Florida, Chicago, and even the Grand Canyon.
“I’ll always love the ocean and the mountains and everything. But there, it felt like we were surviving. Since we moved out here, it feels like we’re living,” elaborates Mandie.
“One of the cool things about Springfield is it has this long history of metalworking,” says Nate. “I’ve heard stories of how there were, like, a hundred foundries here. The history here is pretty amazing, and it feels pretty cool to be a maker. We’re becoming part of that legacy. We feel like Springfield is beginning kind of a renaissance. Things are going to be changing here, and momentum is building, so we’re excited to be a part of that whole thing.“
Mandie loves the support for small businesses she sees in Springfield, but when it comes down to it, it’s the neighborly kinship that pulls at her heartstrings. She says she personally knows 90% of her neighbors within a five-block stretch.
“When I think about the things that make Springfield specifically unique and amazing, it’s the community,” says Mandie. “Here, it’s like you have a family. We don’t have any family here, and we didn’t know anybody here. But every holiday, people open invitations for us to be a part of their families. Even as outsiders, we just feel like we belong here. We feel like part of the fabric that’s always been. And that is not something that you find everywhere. It’s amazing. We love this town, because it is our new family.”
The Flemings report that some friends and neighbors from Springfield, Oregon have recently paid them a visit in their relatively new home of Springfield, Ohio. They say they’re trying to gauge whether they, too, could use a similar change of pace. “They’re strongly considering moving here,” says Nate.
Correction: This story has been updated with the correct name of Doug Frates.