Adrian Molitor knows a thing or two about hardwood floors. With his Madison-based business, Molitor Traditional Flooring, he’s restored historic floors in some of southern Wisconsin’s most iconic homes and businesses. Jess Miller caught up with Molitor to talk about why the old, weathered wood speaks to him.
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The Molitor Traditional Flooring crew is hard at work in Madison’s Lothlórien Cooperative House, a massive yellow castle on Lake Mendota. They are scraping old finish off the living room’s red oak floor. As owner Adrian Molitor restores hardwood floors in homes around Madison, he thinks about the craftsmen that came before him.
“If you can imagine three Swedish guys in a garage cutting the same piece of walnut hundreds of times, that’s what Wisconsin parquet [flooring] is. That’s what those guys were doing,” Molitor said.
The floors that Molitor works on are special. Most of them are more than a century old. Preserving history, he said, is a point of pride.
“I don’t care about new construction. I actually despise the look of it. You know what I mean?” he said. “I love all things old. Patina is who I am as a person.”
Today, business is steady. New clients come almost exclusively from referrals. But unlike one of his handmade parquet designs, Molitor’s path here was anything but clear-cut.
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- Molitor Traditional Flooring finished this parquet floor. Photo courtesy of Adrian Molitor
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- Adrian Molitor’s handiwork: a custom parquet floor before being finished. Photo courtesy of Adrian Molitor
As a teenager in Madison, Molitor dropped out of high school, bought a Ford Econoline van and headed west in search of the American Dream.
“It was kind of like that lifestyle. I was influenced by the music of the Grateful Dead. That was my whole thing at that point in my life,” he said.
He cut his teeth doing grunt work at a hardwood flooring business in Tucson, Arizona. It wasn’t glamorous.
“But I knew that I really enjoyed being tired at the end of the day,” Molitor said, smiling.
He came back to Madison, found work as a tattoo artist and discovered a love for traditional American designs.
“When I think about the type of woodworking that I’m doing now, I feel like it’s, in some way, related to traditional Americana art,” he said. “These are the images. You don’t have to change them too much. You have to stay true to some sort of form or tradition.”
More than a decade ago, Molitor was struggling with alcohol, his mental health and substance abuse.
“In 2012, I had racked up a fourth OWI and then also a drug charge. I was a felon,” Molitor said. “I reached that moment in my life where lightning struck inside of me. I had to be cut completely down to nothing and start my life entirely over. I didn’t drive a car for five or six years in the beginning and rode my bike around Madison to wash dishes, paid off my debts, did everything I could, and just continued to stay sober.“
Adrian Molitor works on the floors of a Madison-area home. Photo courtesy of Adrian Molitor
Molitor eventually made it to college. Inspired by the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Beat Generation poets, he studied poetry and English literature.
“I stuck with it. I got into the University of Wisconsin in the arts at 40. I was really proud of myself,” he said. “I worked really hard, but I hated it. I didn’t have any peers there that I could relate to. I was this guy with my story, and I just felt really disconnected.”
So, he turned to what he knew: woodworking.
“I started my company out of a Hyundai Sonata with rental equipment and about 15 years experience. I made sure everything was perfect,” Molitor said.
Molitor’s first clients were folks who knew him as a hardworking community member. They didn’t care about his background or his dozens of tattoos — a physical patina he accumulated over the years. The work itself was its own reward.
“Knowing that with the sweat of your brow, you’re pounding in a hardwood floor that will outlive the person that’s paying you to install that hardwood floor. That’s incredible,” he said.
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Looking back on his long, strange trip, Molitor said he wouldn’t change a thing. He contributes to his community. He supports a growing family. Last year, he welcomed a son, August.
“He’s the one taking all the money from the wood floors, you know, at home,” said Molitor, laughing.
And for all the floors he’s restored already, there are as many more, waiting for their chance at a new life.
