Steve Minvielle stands next to hundreds of Rosary House candles at the company’s warehouse in New Iberia. 

With close to 75 years in business, the Rosary House in New Iberia remains a family-owned business that still delivers a personal touch for its customers.

The company has been nestled between Main and St. Peter streets in New Iberia for decades, and offers a wide variety of religious merchandise that include candles, statues and, of course, rosaries.

Current owner Steve Minvielle said the business remains solid because of the handmade touch of many of the products and still sees a steady client base.

When did Rosary House first open?

We were established in 1946 by my grandfather. He worked in the east coast in jewelry and marked off in the religious business, and got into rosary making because there was a need. Then we got into concrete statuary because there was a need. Both of those eventually got to be easy to get into so we went into candle making because it was indigenous and unique to us, but we still make rosaries and statues. We’re approached 75 years in business.

Have you made the jump to selling online?

We’re working for online but we keep getting these catastrophic blows. Hurricane Barry ripped the roof off and even if you’re Catholic, insurance companies treat you like everyone else.

Where do your clients come from?

We get quite a bit from local churches but we service churches from all over south Louisiana. Candles are a decent chunk of our business, about 30 percent, but it varies from year to year what sells the most. It’s a human need.

Are your products still handcrafted?

We’re still doing handcrafted. A lot has gone to automated machinery for our competition but we still do it one at a time by hand. It’s not that ours is so much better, with all these machines you’re talking millions of dollars.

Anything else to add?

We do have the greatest diverse in stock on-hand, the average priest can come in or a local person who wants to give a baptismal gift for a child, we probably have the largest stock in south Louisiana. With the hurricane that hit, we were able to redo the whole thing and we will be having a lot of new stuff coming in soon.