Welcome to American Clay Enterprises—the Original Earth Plaster—made in New Mexico! Our products provide a nontoxic, creative solution for beautiful interior finishes for your homes, offices, inns and hotels, spas—anywhere beauty and health are important.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to bring universal awareness to the value of environmentally conscious products for our indoor living spaces. Through the production and success of our sustainable--beautiful Clay Plasters and associated products, we will alter the expectations for quality, beauty, health, and value surrounding the wall surface industry.

Further, our commitment to our customers is to achieve ‘Customer Amazement’! Our employees are integrated into the fabric of Our Mission—feeling respected and empowered to achieve their highest potential.

Our People

CROFT ELSAESSER
President/CEO
A unique blend of left and right brain, he loved chemistry in high school, but never saw it as his end goal. He had his first ‘finishing’ job in 1994 – learning a lot of old world finishing techniques. The toxic impact of these old world techniques became more of a problem for Croft. He increasingly used more natural plasters and "loved" the idea of building with original materials from history, i.e. clay. He wanted to make the product he was using better. Through two years of experimentation. American Clay Earth Plasters became a viable, mass-produced product. Applying for a provisional patent June of 2002, was awarded the Patent Pending in July of 2002, and the Patent in Feb. 2009. With this first patent under his belt, Elsaesser officially inherits the inventor title from his grandfather, Edward M. Sorensen, who held 21 patents and whose key creations are still in use today.

CAROL BAUMGARTEL
CVO/Co-Founder
Carol studied painting and ceramics, earning a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Denver. In 1980, she entered the world of Interior Design and was President of the ASID New Mexico chapter (1991-93). Specializing in interior finishes for commercial builders, residential builders and architects, putting elements together to highlight the physical aspects of a building – and won some interior awards for model homes in the process.

Committed to a sustainable environment, Carol joined with Croft to develop the market data to create American Clay.