About the studio
Lion & Crown Mosaics is Simon Beames — and the lion on the crest isn’t a metaphor borrowed from a stock library. He’s a Brit who crossed an ocean, built a life at altitude, and crowns his own work because he cut every tile in it.
Simon’s career began in 2000, laying terrazzo at Manchester Airport — the sort of floor millions of feet walk over without a second glance, which is precisely the standard: flat, true, and built to outlast everyone who installed it.
From there, five years with Amatino Tiling, an Italian-run firm where the old-country rules applied — mosaics weren’t decoration, they were a trade with centuries behind it, and corners were something you cut glass into, never something you cut.
In 2005 he did what Mancunians have done for generations when the rain gets personal: he left. Colorado first, then America for good — trading grey skies for mountain light, and spending the next two decades as a career tile installer: Schluter-certified, TCNA-standard, 26 years at the bench and counting.
The studio
Lion & Crown is the art side of a lifetime with tile. The same hands that set showers and floors to a tradesman’s standard now draw murals full-size, cut glass and stone piece by piece, and build framed work that ships to homes across the United States.
In his own words
That’s the whole story of the mark. Nobody handed this studio anything — not the skills, not the customers, not the name. Every piece that leaves here is built the same way the business was: one honest piece at a time, set properly, grouted, sealed, and made to last longer than the wall it hangs on.
