IF YOU OWN A BOAT, THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE YOU ALREADY KNOW THE NAME LaPorte. For nearly 50 years, the LaPorte family has been building things by hand for people who live outdoors. What began in 1976 as a furniture upholstery shop grew into one of the Lowcountry’s most trusted names in custom marine covers, and this year, the company is coming full circle, bringing that same craftsmanship back to furniture with a new sister brand, LaPorte Furnishings.
The LaPorte story starts with Maynard “M.J.” LaPorte, a retired Air Force sergeant who opened a furniture upholstery workroom out of his garage in 1976. In that era, furniture was built the old way, with solid oak frames, eight-way hand-tied springs, horsehair and cotton padding, and tapestry fabric prized by Charlestonians for its elegance and durability. It was slow, careful, structural work, and it set the tone for everything the family would build afterward.
By 1980, as demand for that kind of furniture faded, he shifted the business into auto upholstery, and his sons, Darren and Clayton, grew up learning the trade alongside him. Darren LaPorte ventured out on his own for a few years before returning to the family business, and in 1989 he saw an opportunity nobody else here had acted on: marine upholstery. “My family loves the outdoors; we fished, we shrimped, we always wanted to be outside,” Darren LaPorte says. “But, doing automotive upholstery, we were always indoors.” At the time, center console fishing boats and T-tops were just beginning to flourish, and LaPorte wanted in. He and the team began working out of a 1,600-square-foot shack at a local marina, rebuilt just after Hurricane Hugo, patterning and stitching covers dockside. “It was a dream,” he adds.
M.J. LaPorte retired in 1998 and passed the business to Darren and his wife, Camille, who steered it exclusively toward custom marine work. In 1998, after years of trial and error, the company developed what would become its signature product: the T-Top Boat Cover. Rather than a cover that simply snapped onto the frame, which tended to twist and trap moisture underneath, the LaPorte team engineered a suspended design that breathes like a chimney, venting air instead of holding it in. More than two decades later, it remains a product nobody else in the industry has matched.
That same resourcefulness carried the company through hard times. After 9/11 slowed the marine industry to a crawl, Darren LaPorte refused to lay off his staff. Instead, he brought the whole team back to work on faith, even expanding the company’s pattern library from 25 patterns to 75 over three months. It was a wildly risky move, but within the year, they’d sold 90% of what they made. “If it weren’t for that lull, we wouldn’t have been able to understand the possibilities,” he says. “And, we realized we had something nobody else has.” The company applied that same instinct during the 2008 recession, introducing the Boat Shade Kit and Center Console Curtain in 2009. In 2019, the business rebranded from LaPorte’s Upholstery to LaPorte Products, reflecting a broader accessories line, and now runs out of an expanded facility in the industrial park.
LaPorte’s mission is to produce the highest-quality products in the marine accessories industry while delivering an unmatched customer service experience. Its four core values—unity, passion, perseverance and integrity—show up in how the business operates day-to-day. The company is also outspoken about producing solely American-made goods that compete globally, and its community involvement stretches well beyond the Lowcountry, including a program that helps create economic opportunity for women in Togo, West Africa.
For LaPorte, the values trace directly back to how he was raised. “Being from Charleston, my parents taught us a lot of values, including to treat people with respect and manners, and the quality you put into life,” he says. “This is our DNA at LaPorte.” This year the company celebrates its 50th anniversary, a milestone LaPorte credits to the people who have stayed with the business over the decades and the customers who have trusted it.
In the marine world, LaPorte Products’ reputation is built on precision and durability. The company handcrafts custom T-top boat covers, center console boat covers, console curtains and boat shade kits, along with a broader line of marine accessories and apparel, all made to order off an extensive, constantly evolving pattern library. With 11 major boat manufacturers building in South Carolina, seven of them in Summerville alone, and models changing constantly, LaPorte’s patterns never sit still.
The instinct to build for a genuine need rather than chasing a trend is what led LaPorte back to furniture. As he and his wife began thinking about slowing down and building their own backyard retreat, they discovered that truly high-quality outdoor furniture was hard to find. So, they built it themselves, launching Serenity Furniture by LaPorte and, alongside it, LaPorte Cool Shade Umbrellas, using the same aluminum found on the T-top framework, sustainable to winds of 27 mph, with lifetime frames, replaceable parts and interchangeable seasonal canopies for anything from game days to patriotic holidays.
“We sell shade for boats; why can’t we sell shade for docks and decks?” LaPorte asks. That idea grew into a full collection: the Palmetto line, anchored by the signature umbrellas alongside dining and bar seating; the modular Sweetgrass Collection, built for entertaining; and the resort-style Oasis Collection of poolside club chairs and lounge furniture. Frames use a wood-grain material called Tangent, chosen because, unlike teak, it won’t fade or degrade. Cushions and pillows use antimicrobial foam wrapped in Sunbrella and Schumacher fabrics for an elevated, almost indoor furniture feel. “You could put our furniture in your house; it’s that elegant,” LaPorte says. “You don’t see nuts, bolts and screws everywhere.”
For LaPorte, the connection to the marine business isn’t incidental; it’s the whole foundation. “Our marine audience knows us for our quality. We want people to feel the same with our furniture,” he says. “You know us for our boat covers, so you know our furniture will be a nice product for your dock or yard. All the parts are machined in our facility, everything is made in-house, everything designed in-house.”
That distinction matters most in how the furniture is conceived in the first place. LaPorte isn’t designing from a postcard idea of coastal living; he’s designing from inside it. “You won’t see our designs anywhere else,” he says. “We name our products with Charleston flair because everything is connected to what we feel and breathe and live here. It’s furniture made by Charlestonians, for the way Charlestonians actually use their docks, pools and porches, not somebody else’s idea of the Lowcountry, but the real thing, built to last the way the family always believed good work should. The best things aren’t always made fast. The harder it is, the better the quality. We ensure our products are going to last.” *
Robin Howard is a freelance writer in Charleston. See more of her work at robinhowardwrites.com.
