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Business & Tech

Town and Country Business Owner's Work Flies Across St. Louis

The Flag Loft creates flags and banners for Busch Stadium, The Muny and other businesses across the St. Louis metro area.

Although most don’t realize it, just about every St. Louisian has likely seen at least one piece of work created by Town and Country resident Rick Kelly’s The Flag Loft. The Flag Loft produces customized banners and flags, including those that adorn the inside of Busch Stadium and those that hang outside the Muny in Forest Park. And for residents of Manchester or Town and Country, it is almost impossible not to see Kelly’s work.

“(The Flag Loft does) the flags at Des Peres Square, and going down Manchester, we do the flag at Sam’s, that big monstrous flag. We do the flags for , we do the flags for the City of Town and Country, we did the flag pole monument for the City of Manchester, we do the flags for Duke Reality at 141 and Highway 40 and the one big flag for at 141 and Clayton Road,” Kelly said. “You see us everywhere.” 

Kelly is the co-owner of the business with his sister Maureen. Kelly’s other sister and his niece are among the outfit’s nine total employees.

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“It’s nice having family here because you trust them.” Kelly said. “We’re a close family away from business”

Kelly and the company’s eight other employees operate primarily out of a large manufacturing space in St. Louis city.

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“Actually, there are really two businesses that we run out of the manufacturing plant,” Kelly said. “One of the businesses is called The Flag Loft. The other is called The Design Loft.”

The Design Loft creates large architectural and fabric sculptures, which are customized for where they will be placed, often in convention centers, hotels or casinos. Pieces from The Design Loft have been in places as prominent as Chicago’s Center for the Performing Arts and the Rockefeller Center in New York, Kelly said.

The Flag Loft, on the other hand, creates flags of all shapes and sizes. Though it does make Unites States, St. Louis city and other sorts of government flags, most of The Flag Loft’s business comes from creating custom flags for corporations. These are the flags that can be seen at places like Busch Stadium, the Muny, as well as up and down Manchester Road. 

“We don’t do a lot of walk-in traffic, but people are still welcome to come in and purchase a flag. American flags, state flags, military flags--we have them, ” Kelly said. 

Though Kelly’s business does enjoy a large client base, it wasn’t one built overnight. The Kellys began ther business in 1990.

“My sister was already in the flag business with another company here in St. Louis, and I was living down in Florida. And she asked me to put a little of an investment into the company,” Kelly said. “I said no problem and cosigned the loan with her. She was doing The Design Loft side only for about six months, and after six months my wife and I decided we wanted to come back to St. Louis.”

Kelly is a St. Louis native and Chaminade College Preparatory School graduate. When he returned here from Florida he and his sister decided to have both The Design Loft and The Flag Loft as separate entities that would work together. 

Many people (especially those who are not business owners) assume that after a few challenging formative years, it is just smooth sailing for the company and days on the golf course for the owner. Not so, Kelly said. Even after 20 years, he still has to put in the hours just like everyone else, he said.

“Everybody always says ‘Oh you probably get so much time off because you work for yourself,’ but I took off five days two weeks ago, and that was the first vacation I’ve had in over a year,” Kelly said. “And I work a lot of Saturdays.”

However, Kelly’s life isn’t completely flag dominated. In addition to the Flag Loft, he serves on the Town and Country Planning and Zoning Committee, where his knowledge of signage is an asset. And between city government and making flags for nationwide use, Kelly still finds time to play drums for Featherstone Drive, a cover band Kelly started with his brother-in-law. The band most recently took the stage at Town and Country’s Fire and Ice Festival

“I wish I could make money at that,” Kelly said, referring to his drumming. 

But Kelly doesn't want to give the impression that his work with flags is any sort of drudgery, he said. Not many other people can drive down Manchester Road and get the little bits of “instant gratification” Kelly said he gets seeing his work being displayed prominently.

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