Bright ideas

GRATON, Calif. — When remodeling their home, Jan and Jim Loomis meticulously sought out the unusual.

Everything from the accent pieces and pillows to the fixtures and furniture was carefully selected to harmonize with the property’s woodsy environment.

But when it came to outdoor lighting, the couple hit a wall. Exterior fixtures, they were disappointed to discover, seemed uniformly unexciting.

At a time when consumers are overwhelmed with choices for virtually everything from cell phone service plans to energy bars, there were surprisingly few real choices in fixtures. Most companies, Loomis lamented, simply produced variations on the same tired themes.

So when Jan Loomis went to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show in March, she set out to find, among the 360 commercial vendors, someone doing something inspired with lights.

She got lucky and stumbled upon a relatively new company, StoneAge Lighting. Based in Canada but beginning distribution in the United States, StoneAge crafts outdoor fixtures out of granite and limestone.

Indeed, the home improvement boom has created an opening for artisans who want to do something different.

For the Loomises, who wanted something attractive yet unobtrusive, lights that looked almost as though nature had placed them there proved to be the perfect choice.

“I wanted something very organic, very natural,” said Jan Loomis. “I didn’t want the lights to make a statement on their own.”

At the other end of the spectrum, Richard Duben and partner Jesse Bilyeu of Another Planet Lighting create fanciful fixtures using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, from their workshop in Forestville, Calif.

Most commonly seen on stereos, dashboards and other electronics, these ultralow-energy-using lights are slowly making their way into more lighting fixtures.

For her tropical garden in Healdsburg, Calif., landscape designer Diana Stratton basks in the glow of her LEDs housed within sculpted acrylic fixtures.

Stratton was also dismayed by the lack of choices in exterior lighting until she discovered Duben’s playfully inventive lights.

“They’re economical, but aesthetically they’re also beautiful,” said Stratton.

While Another Planet’s fixtures can be wild and otherworldly, their work can also be restrained. Stratton installed a set of sconces in a client’s outdoor courtyard that were downright elegant.

Duben molds his acrylic and LED lights, which run on the same transformer-driven low-voltage systems used by most home exterior lighting systems, into a remarkable variety of shapes and colors.

Path lighting comes in diamond, rectangular or lipstick-style cuts, among others. But the two artists also do special orders and more recognizable shapes, ranging from lilies and tubular snakes he calls “Moonbeams” to flaming faux tiki torches on bamboo stems.

For bases, the artists use copper and brass, which patina and weather well.

“For years we have been boxed in by the idea that technological advances must be encapsulated in sanitary plastic cubicles and parochial designs,” Duben writes on his Web site. “Well, I simply don’t buy into that philosophy. Modern lighting should be functional, yes … but it should also be fun, mysterious and beautiful.”

While there are outdoor fixtures made of concrete and composite stone that imitate real stone, Canadian electrician Carl Christiensen conceived of the idea of using nature’s most durable material, said Josh McGowan, the West Coast representative for StoneAge.

To illuminate the Loomises’ property, designers wound up placing nine of the 100-plus-pound fixtures around the home — three up-lights to spotlight the property’s massive oaks, a bollard in a small garden area and five path lights.

Jan Loomis said the effect of the spotlights’ illuminating the sculptural branches of the oaks is magnificent.

At the same time, the lights themselves are a bit mysterious.

“I like it because it’s a little like Stonehenge here,” she said.