2009 was not the best year to start a new company. In fact, people told us we were naive to think that when titans were crumbling. But we smiled confidently and stayed our course. We knew we had a radical new idea based upon a century-old process. We were preparing ourselves to make a wide plank floor resistant to warping, cupping or shrinking; a stable, long-lasting wide plank wood floor.

That process was called True Balanced Construction. We knew that True Balanced Construction had been used in plywood and furniture making for years, but only in the finest hand laid floors of Europe and the palaces of Park Avenue. Which is where Dan Reisen, the founder and president of Virtu discovered its rock-solid stability over time.

The journey to Virtu began when Dan Reisen and Janos Spitzer uncovered an amazing example of True Balanced Construction by an unknown master woodsmith, hidden yet proven for more than 80 years.

Reisen and Spitzer's war stories cover amazing ground. Together, they worked to match 200-year-old cherry borders in the White House. Then there's the 250,000 feet of flooring for 15 Central Park West, the most prestigious residential project in New York City in recent years.

But perhaps their greatest story comes from 720 Park Avenue, a grand building constructed for the American elite during the Gilded Age. Created to reflect the apex of U.S. wealth and prestige during the early part of the 20th century, a significant flooring secret was uncovered when Spitzer was replacing a water-damaged floor original to the building. His discovery was a floor that had remained flawless for 80 years—practically unheard of today. The floors were 6" face, three-layer balanced construction oak. Spitzer showed a perfectly flat piece to Reisen, and offered this challenge:

“With current technology, why can't we do this today?”

From that point forward, after 3 years of product development, that question finally has its answer. With Virtu technology, we can do it today.