Leon Tailoring Co.
After 120 years and three generations, an Indianapolis institution closed its doors. We built the page that says so properly.
At a glance
What the engagement covered, and where the work is live.
- Client type
- Family tailoring house, Indianapolis, 1905 to 2025
- Services delivered
- Website Design and Development, Brand Identity, Hosting and Care
- Timeline
- A single-purpose build, kept online indefinitely
- Live site
- leontailoring.com
The problem
Leon Tailoring Company opened on Indiana Avenue in 1905 and closed on February 28, 2025. Larry and Norman Ettinger, the third generation, were still busy when they stopped. There was no fourth generation, and a business that had dressed this city for 120 years was about to become a disconnected phone number and a dead domain.
The approach
We built one page, and only one. Not a notice, not a redirect, not a holding message. A record: the family, the four buildings, the timeline from 1905 to 2025, and the brothers in their own words. The design borrows from the shop rather than from us, and the writing stays out of the way of people who had already said everything worth saying.
The outcome
Leon Tailoring has a permanent address that tells its own story rather than trailing off. Customers who go looking find something worth finding. We host it and keep it online, which is a small thing to carry for a business that carried this city for 120 years.
In detail
What the build actually involved.
The brief nobody wants
Most website projects are about getting more. This one was about closing well.
Leo and Sadie Ettinger arrived from Europe with what they could carry under their arms, opened a shop on Indiana Avenue in 1905, lived above it, and worked from seven in the morning until midnight. What began as “Leon the Tailor” became an institution across four buildings and a block-long showroom on Massachusetts Avenue. It survived two fires and two occasions when a vehicle came through the front of the building.
Larry and Norman Ettinger, the third generation, served clients from 41 states. Larry, at 85, put it the same way every time he was asked: from the ditch digger at Citizens Energy all the way up to the vice president of the United States. He served them all the same.
Business was strong right to the end. The reason it closed was an injury and the arithmetic of a craft with nobody left to hand it to.
The default outcome for that story is a dead domain and a disconnected number. Somebody searches the name in five years and finds nothing, or worse, finds a parked page with advertising on it.
What we built, and what we left out
One page. Not a site. There is nothing to navigate to, because there is nothing left to sell. A menu would have implied a business still open for it.
Their words, not ours. Larry on making sure every item is perfect for its purpose. Norman on wanting every customer to look and feel their best. Norman noting that their father died coming down to the store and their uncle died getting ready to come to the store. Nothing we could write would improve on that, so we set it carefully and got out of the way.
A timeline that is specific. 1905 on Indiana Avenue. The 1910s move to Massachusetts Avenue and the immigrant tailors from Italy, Germany and Greece who were hired there. The Taggart Building in the 1930s. Incorporation in 1942. The third generation arriving in the 1950s. The final home at 809 North Delaware Street from 1967, nearly sixty years. February 28, 2025.
Three generations, named. Leo and Sadie. Shoolem and Eli. Larry and Norman. A family business should read as a family, not as a brand.
A design that belongs to the shop. Dark ground, gold, and a display serif that would not be out of place on a bolt of cloth or a shop window. The crest is theirs. None of our house style appears anywhere on it, which is the correct decision for a memorial and the wrong one for almost anything else.
No form. No newsletter. No call to action. There is nothing to convert. Putting an inquiry form on a farewell page would have been the single worst decision available.
Why this is in our portfolio
Not as a demonstration of technique. There is not much technique in one page.
It is here because this is the kind of work small firms are actually asked to do, and it deserves the same care as a launch. A business that spent 120 years getting the details right should not be closed out with a template and a forwarding address.
We keep the page hosted. There is no plan for it to come down.
Tell us what you need built.
No pitch deck and no discovery fee. Most engagements start with a single site, and we add the rest only when it earns its place.
- Send a short brief, or just a link to the site you have now.
- We reply within two business days with questions, or a time to talk.
- You get scope, sequence and a price range in writing before anything starts.