Casablanca, Pasadena and three fans.

Fanimation began as a piece of another fan company. Its own history says that Tom Frampton, as a high-school junior in 1973, started working for Burton A. Burton, who went on to form the Casablanca Fan Company. English Wikipedia, citing the Los Angeles Times in July 1985, says Burton founded Casablanca in Pasadena, California, in 1974; Fanimation’s timeline puts the formation by 1975. Casablanca became known for selling ceiling fans as furniture, and English Wikipedia says it has been part of Hunter Fan Company since 1996.

Fanimation says that in 1984, through a deal with Burton, Frampton left Casablanca taking its specialty fan department with him, and began Fanimation in Pasadena. The company says he worked from his garage with three designs: the Punkah, the Palmetto and the Bourbon Street. Casablanca itself was changing that year: English Wikipedia says it bought Lavery & Co., a Van Nuys maker of consumer lighting fixtures, in 1984, to even out the seasonal swings of the fan trade, and the Los Angeles Times reported in July 1985 that Burton had returned to the helm of Casablanca after a break, as chief executive of its parent, Casablanca Industries.

The company tells a film story about its early years. It says that in 1986 an interior designer commissioned a small-scale version of the Palmetto for the master suite of a film set, for a picture whose working title was Jerry Saved from Drowning and which was released as Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Fanimation says the interest that followed led Frampton to introduce a residential fan, the Palisade, in 1990, a design with two vertically mounted opposed motors. The company says the Palisade proved too tall for a standard ceiling, so Frampton made a version half the height; it sold well enough to be given its own name, the Islander.

Indianapolis, Lebanon, Zionsville and a second generation.

The business then left California. Fanimation’s timeline says that in 1994 Frampton moved the company from Pasadena to Indianapolis, Indiana, and that shortly afterwards it moved again to Lebanon, Indiana, a town north-west of the city. In 2003, the company says, it settled in Zionsville, Indiana, another small city north-west of Indianapolis, where its corporate headquarters remain; its website today gives a Bennett Parkway address in the town.

Leadership has stayed in the family, according to the company. Fanimation says that Nathan Frampton, Tom Frampton’s son, joined in 2001 and became president in 2007. The company still presents Tom Frampton as its founder and describes the business as having grown from his family garage. Its website directs buyers to authorised dealers and also runs a trade-customer programme, an affiliate programme and a network of sales agents.

The company has also tried to add a calendar date to the category. Fanimation says that 18 September 2013 was the inaugural National Ceiling Fan Day, a holiday it founded, marked with a party at its headquarters. Technology followed: in 2015 the company introduced fanSync, an app that, it says, could at the time control most three-speed AC-motor fans from a smart device, and whose later versions use Wi-Fi to connect with smart-home systems.

Its trade presence centres on Dallas. Fanimation says it marked its 35th year in 2019 with a renovated and enlarged showroom at the Dallas Market Center for the Lightovation lighting fair, and the market center lists the company among its exhibitors. In 2024 the company marked its fortieth year with a celebration of the journey from the founder’s garage. The company says the 2019 showroom received “a much needed facelift”, and it presents the Dallas showroom as part of its Lightovation season, the lighting trade fair held at the market center.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group make fireplaces and ceiling fans, two kinds of product that sit at the centre of a room and are chosen as much for how they look as for what they do. Some of the names began as small workshops or family firms and still carry a founder’s name; others now belong to larger home-products or building-products groups, and a single brand can be sold through specialist showrooms, dealers and online retailers at the same time.

Because the company behind a hearth or fan brand may have changed hands, moved its offices or shifted its manufacturing, the name on the product often travels further than the business that first used it. That makes the plain questions worth asking for each one: who started it, who owns it now, and where its fireplaces or fans are actually made.

Each guide separates what independent, dated sources record — newspapers, trade press and official notices — from what the company says about itself, including its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its names, labels and catalogues have changed, and it marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A coined name and a palm blade.

Fanimation’s identity starts with a coined name that joins the product to the idea of movement. The company writes it in capital letters throughout its own history, as FANIMATION, and the three designs it says it started with were the Punkah, the Palmetto and the Bourbon Street. The company itself has described its early reputation as that of “the company known for making palm blades.”

That reputation eventually needed updating. Fanimation says that in 2016, as it grew from a maker of palm-blade fans into a company offering hundreds of designs and new technology, it introduced a new logo along with a full new brand design. The company’s website now frames its offer around comfort, performance and style, and organises its range for homeowners, trade customers and dealers. Its range is offered to homeowners online, to trade customers and through dealers, and the website links to a downloadable product catalogue.

For a design guide, Fanimation shows a fan brand that refreshed its logo and brand design in 2016 while keeping its founder’s coined name. Compare Casablanca, the Pasadena company from which Frampton took the specialty fan department, and Hunter Fan, which has owned Casablanca since 1996. For this guide we use a palm green, a rattan brown and a linen white with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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