← The JournalSlab Arrival · March 2026
Antolini Kosmos Quartzite slab Super Cleft Texture finish on a crane in the Royal Stone yard, charcoal grey ground with silver mica, paler swirled veining and rust passages, 129 by 74 inches
Slab in daylight
Close-up of Antolini Kosmos Quartzite Super Cleft Texture finish with a hand for scale, showing the rough split rock face, silver mica flecks, charcoal ground, and rust-coloured iron passages
Texture, hand for scale

Kosmos is one of the dense, deep-grey quartzites in current Antolini production — a charcoal ground shot through with silver mica, ribboned with paler grey swirls and the occasional rust passage where iron oxidized through the bed. Polished, it reads close to a hard-rock granite. The story changes completely with Antolini's Super Cleft Texture finish.

Super Cleft is not a sandblast and not a leather. It is closer to a controlled fracture: the surface is split along the stone's natural cleavage planes and left there. No diamond pads, no resin fill. What you see in the close-up below — the rough, broken-open rock face, the mica catching light at every angle, the rust ghosting through the grey — is the raw quartzite as it leaves the block. The hand reads it as rock, not as countertop.

It is closer to a controlled fracture: the surface is split along the stone's natural cleavage planes and left there.
From the slab arrival, March 2026

This is the largest format Antolini produces this finish in: 129″ × 74″ jumbo, single slab. At that size the cleft texture starts behaving architecturally — the surface absorbs light the way a stacked-stone wall does, but with the visual continuity of a single piece. No grout joints, no veneer reads. One face, one stone, the full elevation.

The installed reference pictured below is from a Westside primary living room currently in finish — a freestanding double-sided fireplace mass clad floor-to-ceiling in Kosmos Super Cleft, sitting on a honed black soapstone hearth and base, with the firebox glazed full-height in clear glass on three sides. The two angles show the same mass: one looking at the front elevation through the firebox, the other reading the corner return and the side face. Note how the Super Cleft texture works across both planes — light catches the mica differently on the side that faces the windows than on the side that faces the room, and the wrapped corner reads as a single broken-rock monolith rather than two clad faces meeting.

On the floor at 2303 South Sepulveda. This is one of those slabs that has to be walked — photographs flatten the texture, and the difference between Super Cleft in yard daylight and Super Cleft on a finished fireplace mass is most of the specification decision. Designers and architects working in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Pacific Palisades, and Malibu — call and we'll pull it for you.

Tagged

AntoliniQuartziteKosmosSuper CleftJumbo SlabSlab Arrival

In place

The stone, installed.

Reference photography of this slab — or stone from the same selection — finished and at home in completed work.

  • Antolini Kosmos Quartzite Super Cleft Texture installed as a freestanding double-sided fireplace mass with a full-height glass firebox and a honed black soapstone hearth and base, in a Westside primary living room in finish stage
    Westside primary living room — front elevation, glass firebox on honed black soapstone hearth.
  • Side-angle view of the same Antolini Kosmos Quartzite Super Cleft Texture fireplace mass, showing the wrapped corner return reading as a single broken-rock monolith across two faces
    Same mass, corner return — the wrap reads as one broken-rock monolith.

Visit the Yard

See the stone
in natural light.

Royal Stone is a working slab yard. Designers and private clients are received by appointment Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:30 pm.

2303 S Sepulveda Blvd

Los Angeles, CA 90064