Some furniture brands are decades old. Lloyd Flanders has been at it for over a century — and the company's origin story is stranger, and more inventive, than you'd expect.
A Machine Built to Weave Baby Carriages
In 1906, a man named Marshall B. Lloyd founded a company in the small town of Menominee, Michigan. Lloyd wasn't a furniture designer by trade — he was an inventor. His original ambition was to build a better baby carriage, and to do that, he needed a faster, more consistent way to weave wicker than the slow, entirely hand-done methods of the time.
So he built a machine for it. In 1917, Lloyd patented what became known as the Lloyd Loom — a mechanized weaving process that could produce tightly woven, durable wicker at a scale hand-weaving never could. It was a genuine industrial breakthrough, and it's the same core weaving technique, refined over a century, that Lloyd Flanders furniture still uses today.
From Lloyd to Flanders
The company built on Marshall Lloyd's invention for decades, but the name most people know today — Lloyd Flanders — actually comes from a later chapter. In 1982, brothers Don and Dudley Flanders purchased the original factory and its equipment, carrying the Lloyd Loom tradition forward under a new name. The Menominee, Michigan facility where Lloyd built his original weaving machines is, remarkably, the same place Lloyd Flanders furniture is still handcrafted today.
Built to Handle Real Weather
For most of its early history, wicker furniture had one big limitation: it wasn't built to live outdoors. That changed in 1985, when Lloyd Flanders introduced its first all-weather wicker collection — engineering the woven look everyone loved into a material that could actually withstand sun, rain, and years of real outdoor use without falling apart.
That shift is a big part of why Lloyd Flanders furniture has ended up in some genuinely notable places — including the White House and Buckingham Palace — alongside countless resorts, hotels, and backyards across the country.
Nineteen Collections, One Century-Old Craft
Today, Lloyd Flanders offers close to 20 distinct collections, ranging from the classic hand-woven wicker of lines like Reflections, to the solid teak of Alpine, to the aluminum-framed, faux-wood styling of newer lines like Frontier. What ties all of it together is the same thing that's defined the brand since 1906: furniture built by hand, in the same small Michigan town, using a weaving process that started as one inventor's answer to a much simpler problem.
Browse the full Lloyd Flanders collection on our site to see the craftsmanship for yourself.
Common Questions
When was Lloyd Flanders founded?
The company traces back to 1906, when Marshall B. Lloyd founded it in Menominee, Michigan. It took the Lloyd Flanders name in 1982, when Don and Dudley Flanders purchased the original factory.
Is Lloyd Flanders furniture made in the USA?
Yes. Lloyd Flanders furniture is still handcrafted in the same Menominee, Michigan facility where the original Lloyd Loom weaving machines were built over a century ago.
What is Lloyd Flanders best known for?
Lloyd Flanders is best known for the Lloyd Loom weaving process, patented in 1917, a mechanized technique for producing tightly woven wicker that's still used to craft the brand's furniture today.
What is Lloyd Flanders' most popular collection?
Reflections is one of the brand's most classic collections, known for its hand-woven wicker construction. Alpine, built from solid teak, and Frontier, with its aluminum faux-wood styling, are also among the brand's most distinctive lines.