Dwight Ingalls built his first fire table in 2012 — not in Wisconsin, but in Sarasota, Florida, working alongside a customer of his mold-making business to cast what would become the Fire and Ice table. He did not know it at the time, but that build would eventually become Castin Crete Designs.

Before founding Castin Crete, Dwight worked as a decorative concrete sales rep, training and educating contractors across the region on decorative concrete techniques — a category that included extensive hands-on work with GFRC. He attended industry classes, taught them, and developed a working knowledge of the material that goes well beyond what most fire table retailers ever acquire. He also spent years building fiberglass molds, a skill carried over from an earlier career — one that gave him an unusual combination of manufacturing precision and material knowledge.

The business itself started because of a conversation. A design-oriented friend saw a concrete bowl Dwight had built and told him flatly that he needed to be selling these. He took the idea to a few other designers. They agreed. Castin Crete followed.

Dwight has lived in Wisconsin his entire life and is currently based in Oconomowoc. He describes his creative process as instinctive — locking onto a shape or image and letting it develop. That instinct shows up in the work. No two Castin Crete tables are identical. GFRC responds to temperature, humidity, water ratio, and application pressure in ways that require constant adjustment. Dwight considers that sensitivity an advantage, not a liability. It means every table carries something of the conditions it was built in — and something of the person who built it.

Every fire table that ships from the Hartland studio has been individually batched, hand-cast, and personally overseen by Dwight. That is not a marketing claim. It is how the shop runs.