The Design Legacy Behind America’s Most Iconic Furniture Brands: Alex Shuford III

Episode Transcript
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Voice Over (00:00):
This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and
curiosity meet style and design.
Curator of interiors,furnishings, and lifestyles,
hosted by Tiffany Woolley, aninterior designer and a style
enthusiast, along with herserial entrepreneur husband
Scott.
iDesign Lab is your ultimatedesign podcast, where we explore

(00:20):
the rich and vibrant world ofdesign and its constant
evolution in style and trends.
Today on the iDesign Lab, we'rejoined by Alex Schuford III,
president and CEO of CenturyFurniture and the Rock House
Farm Family of Brands, includinglegendary names like Hickory
Chair, Hancock and Moore, andMaitland Smith.
A third-generation designleader, Alex has spent his life

(00:42):
shaping how craftsmanship,innovation, and timeless design
come together in the luxuryfurniture world.
Please welcome Alex Schuford.

Tiffany Woolley (00:51):
Welcome to the iDesign Lab Podcast.
Today we are luckily to be instudio with Alex Schuffert of
Rock House Farm Family Brands.

Alex Shuford III (01:02):
Yeah.
Rockhouse Family Brands, sure.
CEO.

CEO.
So welcome not only to SouthFlorida, but to the iDesign Lab
podcast.
You have such a lengthy storythat we hope to get into today
about the family business ofdesigning a life around a
beautiful business of furniture.

Scott Woolley (01:24):
I think the first thing I want to bring up or
talk about is your thirdgeneration.
Your grandfather started thecompany.
And your uncle?

My uncle was uh president after my
grandfather, and uh my dadworked with my uncle, was uh ran
all the upholstery operations,and and then for a short period
of time we had managers not thefamily running it.
Really?
And then family stepped back inand has run it for the last
year.

But three drench generations, that's three
generations.
That's a wonderful thing totalk about.

So American, I believe, too.
Iconic.

When did your grandfather start it?
1947.
We were a textile family beforethat, so we were yarn and twine
from the turn of the century,1800s, and then slowly got into
fabric weaving.
Uh and in the 30s, mygrandfather bought a fabric
company called Bowdy's Weaversduring the tough times.

(02:17):
The family legend is he eitherwon it in a poker game or bought
it for a dollar and assumed thedebt, right?
So whichever one you prefer.
Uh but he turned the fabriccompany around, was doing fairly
well, and and then once the thewar effort broke out, all the
factories were turned over tothe war effort.
Then post-World War II,obviously a lot of GIs were

(02:38):
coming back, it was a little bitof a boom time.
People were starting familiesand households, and there wasn't
enough furniture production,and there were a lot of
shortages of materials.
So if you were trying to getinto furniture production or
already making furniture, youwere struggling to find metal
springs and fabric, things ofthat nature.
He happened to own a fabriccompany, so he had access to

(02:58):
that material.
And he was a connector, he wasone of these great people that
could uh walk into a room andtwenty minutes later know
everybody.
And so we knew a guy in thegovernment who had access to
metal springs.
And uh so he put two and twotogether, went around town, and
talked to a lot of the smallfurniture companies about
producing specific designs justfor him.

(03:20):
So we literally started as awhite label buyer of other
people's capacity.
Um famously Buddy Cheryl's dadactually made furniture for my
granddad for a while.
That's right.
And then after about sixmonths, he realized that almost
anybody could get into theupholstery business.
Right.
He started his own facility,but also then began construction

(03:42):
on our case goods factory.

Um somewhere in the late 40s, early fifties.

Uh we still own the first facility they ever
had.
Uh we actually producefurniture in it right now.
All in North Carolina.
Still all in North Carolina.

So it's started in North Carolina and started
and stayed.

Yeah.
And the fabric company stilldoes wonderfully, uh sells
fabric to most of the majorplayers in the industry.
They're now actually a 100%employee-owned company.
We sold it to the employees.
What a beautiful story.
It's a good it's a good littleuh American story.
And third generation messes itup, so maybe I'm that guy.
Uh so far we've been able tonavigate through at least the

(04:26):
obvious and major hurdles, likeyou know, global pandemic,
housing collapse, things likethat.
So we'll we'll see.
Maybe this next one will catchus.
But uh so far I've got enoughsmart people around me to keep
me from my my worst decisions.

Aaron Ross Powell So growing up, you grew up in
the furniture business.
But as a kid or as a teenager,were your aspirations and goals
to Were not.

So my first summer job, uh so I grew up on a
horse farm.
Um my mom raised usthoroughbred horses, and so as
kids we were mucking stalls andfeeding horses and baling hay,
and and she always would remindus that if we failed in life
there was a pitchfork with ourname on it.
We could come back and muckstalls.
Um but my first real summer jobwas working in the furniture

(05:12):
facilities.
Uh I worked in distribution andthen I worked one summer in the
case goods factory gluingcorner blocks onto the underside
of drawers, and and then when Igot into college, you know, my
dad, to his credit, was youknow, told me do something other
than furniture.
Really?
And uh, you know, and so I sortof ran from it as as for a

(05:33):
while, and then I went tocollege out in California, and
then post-college ended upstaying out there.
Um and as gravity is, I endedup buying a little fabric and
decorating store in NorthernCalifornia outside of San
Francisco from two ladies thatwere running a little operation
selling fabric by the yard anddoing window treatments and top

(05:53):
of the bed.
And um and I sort of got myteeth into it and thought that I
was better than I was, so Iopened up a second one and then
we bought a third one and weopened up a fourth one.

And so the entrepreneurial spirit was there
as well.

And it was the category I knew at least
something about, or at least Ithought I did in my twenties.
You know, it later in life yourealize you knew nothing about
it, and thank God for a coupleof really wonderful ladies that
kept me from messing up morethan I would have otherwise.
But but that early experiencein retail and in design really
helped sort of set me up to comeback into the quote unquote

(06:28):
family business.
Um and in about the 2001 timeframe, I came back into the
town.

So did they pursue and go after you, or did
you have Coles wanting to goback to North Carolina?

Yeah, no, I I uh I was living in Northern
California, so no one ever wantsto leave Northern California.
But you can't afford to livethere, so then you have to make
practical decisions.
Um and I had just gottenmarried um and uh and we wanted
to buy a house and start afamily, and so there was a
temptation to uh to kind of gosomewhere where it was more uh
sort of affordable to live.

(07:02):
Um and we had as a familycompany, the the the corporate
entity, Sentry, had bought acompany called Expressions
Furniture.
And Expressions was a customupholstery operation that had
franchised stores.
Um but we didn't know anythingabout running retail stores
because we were a manufacturer.
But I was out in NorthernCalifornia running retail stores
and so my dad asked me if Iwould go take a look at it and

(07:25):
just give him an assessment ofhow this operation was running.
And so as a favor, I said,sure, I'll you know, I'll find
something.

So you came with a different perspective.

That's right.
I had a little bit more ofthat.
What does it look like to run aseven-day-a-week business and
to deal with the consumer?
And then so after a couple ofmonths of of sort of checking
out a couple of stores, he and Ihad a long conversation and he
asked me if I would come helprun the expressions operation.
And I sort of did it as apart-time thing with my retail
stores on the other side.

(07:54):
Because everybody forgets theoriginal dot com bust was in
that 2000 time frame wherepets.com and you know all the
original companies went, youknow, went under.
And I was in NorthernCalifornia running high-end
luxury furniture and decoratingservices.
So I had some time on my handsbecause things were a little
slow.
Uh and after I got moreinvolved, it's you know,

(08:17):
businesses are sticky.
When you find I'm a fix-it guy,I like to fix things.
And so once I got involved withExpressions, it was plenty of
stuff that needed to be.
So how many stores didExpressions have?
At that point in time, theywere just under forty, most of
them franchise.

That's a lot.

It was a lot.
It was a big operation.
Small stores, they were all,you know, I call it 8,000 to
12,000 square foot stores.

Brick and mortar.

Yeah, brick and mortar, and and run by
people franchising is a funnything.
You know, when somebody buys afranchise, they expect it to be
easy and successful.
Um and the the problem is itwas also furniture, so it also
had the element of beingdifficult and low margin.
And so that combination uhrequired a lot of coaching, a
lot of you know, sort ofmanagement attention to make

(09:00):
sure the franchisees weresuccessful.
Some of them were werewonderful business people and
ran great operations, and otherones struggled more and took
more hand holding.
And and you know, we also owneda factory that supported them,
so that uh eventually fellunderneath my uh umbrella, and I
had to make sure the factorywas full, which was you know
something I think a lot ofpeople in the industry don't

(09:21):
think about when they thinkabout this this you know, this
industry is we really uh uh oursuccess is determined by how
full we keep our factories.
You know, and so you do thatwith fashion, you do that with
relationship, you you do thatwith newness, you do that with
pricing and promotion anddiscount, you whatever tool you
can pull out of your toolkit,the deal is run your people 40

(09:43):
hours a week.
Because if they're getting afull 40-hour work week, then
you're probably making money,they're probably staying with
you, you're probably having somesuccess.
But if you start underfillingyour factory, now you've got a
reputational problem locally,you've got all kinds of
headaches financially, and andso my job was keep that factory
full.

And busy.

That's right.
But I only had those stores todo it with.
So I was trying to find my wayout of that.

When you were in college, did what was your good
degree?
Was it marketing or because youhave an interesting background
in terms of jumping into retailYeah and understanding retail is
Absolutely?

It was so I'm an English major.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
An English major creativewriting as my concentration.
Um and people always kind ofraise their eyebrow at that, and
I tell them, well, at at itsbase, you know, it was a liberal
arts education.
Right.
So it was critical thinking,analysis, uh comparative
analysis.

What a great base.

But also communication, the ability to
get an idea across, to be ableto verbalize that and say it
eloquently so that you caninfluence others to kind of move
forward with you.
And um, I'm a big fan of peoplethat um have a broad concept of
education, again, the abilityto critically think, but have

(10:58):
learned to communicate.
And if you think about where weare heading, and we may delve
into this with AI coming onboard as quickly as it is, your
hard science degree may not beas valuable as that person next
to you who used to make fun ofwho has a softer degree in
something that's more alignedwith communications.
But but yeah, I was um I took alot of business classes uh also

(11:22):
uh sort of uh alongside of thatEnglish major.
And then I was just interestedin the way businesses operated.
I I did a lot of sort of uhself-education, uh reading uh
and listening and being aroundbusiness people.
But there's no better educationin business than to go work

(11:42):
retail.
Like that's where the rubbermeets the road in almost every
business in America.
And and retail, you know, wealways think it's selling a
physical item, but it's not.
You could be selling a service,you know, you could be selling
a concept, you could be sellingmarketing, but that ability to
interact with the buyer, thecustomer, to get them to feel
good about what's happening, totrust you as the seller, and

(12:05):
then to consummate thetransaction.
Because a lot of people fail atthat level, right?
Don't forget to ask for theorder.
Right.
You spend an hour getting themto like you, and then they walk
out the door and you forgot toask them for the order.

Oh, he was a nice guy.

Yeah, that was wonderful.
I had a nice pleasantafternoon.
Now I'm gonna go somewhere elsesomewhere else and buy the
product.
But but that was a big part ofmy early education was getting
into retail and then having thesuccess and failure of my little
operation out in California bemy pers personal success or
failure.
Like I was a sole proprietor.
So the checks I wrote were outof my checking account, right?

(12:37):
If we were short money thatweek to pay a supplier, it was m
my issue.
Yeah.
Um and uh You were eating lessthat week.
I was eating less, that'sright.
I was sleeping on theconference room table.

I was figuring it out.
So I I opened a grocery storeat 21 years old, 32,000 square
feet, grew it to 42 stores in 11years.
My first two years, I basicallyI would say slept in the back
room.
I would take like scarlet toweltowel boxes, put them all
together.
Put them together, and that'swhat I slept on most nights

(13:07):
because I would finish work at 230 in the morning and the store
was open back at seven and so Islept two hours in the back
room.

It is such a I I had a very similar story
where I sold the my friend and Ihad a house in the Bay Area.
We sold it, and I kept saying,Well, I'll find an apartment,
I'll find an apartment.
And because I was working 80hours a week, I never got around
to finding an apartment.
I lived for two months in myoffice.

I actually I actually had a a shower
installed in the back room withjust like a wire with a screen
and at six o'clock before anyonecan't got into the store, I'd
take my shower.

That's it.
I would wake up and go to thehealth club every morning at
like 4 35, take a shower, I'd beback in the office.
And you do, and it's that grit.
It is an underappreciatedelement in business success.
You a lot of people read about,well, you fail and you learn
from your failures, but but theydon't, I think, feel what that
means, which is you're willingto do anything and everything to

(14:06):
make sure that this entity youhave stays alive.
And it's it's like raising achild.
It is, it's your first baby.
It's your first baby, right?
It really is.
Um yeah, so that for me was wassort of seminal.
And I'm uh when I interviewpeople, it uh it's usually
something I'm looking for.
Have you ever worked in retail?
Because there's an empathy thatcomes with that, both for the

(14:27):
customer but also for yourfellow business person.
Um you know, to realize howhard it is to deal at the point
of contact with the personthat's buying the good.
And and if you have thatempathy, then it changes your
whole perspective inrelationships and how you
develop trust.
So 42, that's no small feat.
That's in 11 years.

Yeah, 42 grocery stores, six liquor stores, and
four pharmacies.
Oh wow.
Well, you need to put liquorstores because you were in the
grocery business.
My most frustrating thing wasthat we had pharmacies in four
stores, but I was not allowed toever go into or walk in the
pharmacy because I didn't have apharmacy license.
And then I would have argumentswith some of the pharmacists

(15:09):
that I had that I hired to runthe pharmacist, right?

That's where trust comes in.

You're not allowed in there.
I love it.

Speaker 5 (15:18):
That's kind of crazy.

But you were allowed in the liquor store,
right?

Yeah.
So along the way in your earlyyears, was did you have any
mentors or people that kind ofguided you, you looked up to,
you got advice from?

Well, I mean, primarily, obviously, my father
was a big one, a big influence.
Um and I knew my grandfather,but uh he wasn't active
mentoring me.
Uh he was more of this sort ofidea of success.
Okay.
But my dad was someone I wouldreach out to and uh and help me
along the way quite a bit.
And then and then in retailearly in California, um I had

(15:54):
there was a an operation uh inone of the areas where I had
opened my last store, uh, and hewas a really successful little
decorating business there, andum and for for a long time I
competed with him poorly.
He continued to beat me.
And he's a classic story.
I finally invited him out tolunch.
I said, I you know, like if Ican't beat you, I'm gonna at

(16:15):
least talk to you about why.
And uh and I won't name hisname, but I took him out to
lunch and we had a nice longlunch, and at the end of the
lunch I looked at him and Isaid, Finally, he said, How do
you do it?
Like I, you know, I do X andyou do X minus Y, and you I do Y
and you do Z.
And I I just can't I can't win.
And I was just down the streetfrom him, and he looked at me
and he goes, So you rent?

(16:37):
And I went, Yes, sir.
He goes, Yeah.
You're probably never gonnabeat me.
I own.
And it was lots of littletidbits like that over time
where people had given me justreally good, simple advice.
Yeah.
The the first two ladies that Ibought the first store from
were fabulous mentors.
You know, because I was 24.

(16:58):
I was a kid.

I know, and how did you even get to that?
Yeah, it was crazy.
I was 24.

I was doing um high net worth advising, you
know, where they hire young kidsrecently college educated that
can speak well, and they sendthem out there to try to build
up a book of business.
And I uh was focusing on kindof the one area I knew, which
was textiles and furniture, etcetera.
And I wandered into this littlestore owned by the a couple of
ladies out in California, andthey were delightful.

(17:25):
Uh and after a longconversation at the end of it, I
left them a card and said, Ifyou're interested.
If you ever want to sell it,call me.
Did something spark an interestwhen you saw the operation?
It was a it was a fabulouslocation, um, but it was they
had they were struggling with uhwith brand identity and a few
elements that I thought, gosh, Icould fix these things.

(17:48):
Um, and you know, just wherethey were, what they were
getting 5,000 cars a day pastit, but they had named it you
know in a way that everybodythought was an Italian
restaurant.
So I was like, because it tookme a long time to find it, and
so I said, gosh, I can fix this.
And they laughed at me when Iwhen I left them my cart and
walked out, and then a coupleweeks later they called me and
said, Are you serious?

(18:09):
What we might want to sell it.
And you know, and post-buyingit from them, they really they
were you know they were in theirmid to late fifties.
I was in my twenties.
They taught me a lot about howto deal with the customer, about
just the the sort of finerpoints of design and decadently.
They stay on with you for aperiod.
They stayed on with you to theto the very end.
Um, you know, and uh Sheila andLinda, if you're out there

(18:32):
listening, they love this ashout-out for you.
But they um wonderful ladies,and they were patient with me,
they were stern when they neededto be, you know, even though I
was the quote unquote boss, theywere they were effectively
raising me as an empathetic uhexecutive.
And then when I got back intothe family business, there were
any number of people.
Um the guy that brought me backinto the business himself, uh a

(18:55):
gentleman named Bob Merisich,who you know famously went on
later to to run the Las VegasMarket Center, and their company
ended up buying you know about60-70 percent of the real estate
in High Point, where the bigshow is.
But he was the president ofCentury at the time, and he was
an incredibly charismaticleader.
Um and from everybody I'veworked for, I you know you

(19:17):
always try to take away theelements that you think are are
really valuable.
And from from Bob, that abilityto sort of command a room, that
charisma, to to get people onboard quickly with a concept and
get them moving as a grouptowards the execution of it, you
know, was a was kind of asuperpower he had, and something

(19:38):
that again, I'm people areoften surprised by this.
I'm introverted by nature.
If you give me a personalitytest, I'm an introvert.
Um they say, wow, you don'tcome across as an introvert,
even though I'm veryextroverted.
But it's all about at the endof the day, does that wear you
out and do you need to rechargeor whether does that charge you
up?
But the skill of learning howto r understand a group of

(20:00):
people, feel their energy, andthen move them together as a
group towards a goal, that's athat's a learned skill.
You can do that.
It's like I tell my kids, likepublic speaking is just a
learned skill.
It is.
It may make you nervous, butyou do it you know enough times
in a row, you will get good atit.

Speaker 5 (20:15):
Right.

Um, and I I learned a lot from him.
Uh there was a great upholsteryperson.
I've actually just hired himback as a uh consultant at the
company matter of fact named BobChoppa, who was a wonderful
merchant, but even more so wasfabulous in a factory.
And that's a whole differentskill than being in front of a
customer.
You know, people in a factorysee things differently.

(20:37):
They they come with a littlebit more um uh I guess
skepticism uh when they you knowwhen you when you approach them
as an executive.
You've got to show them.
You've got to, you know, youhave to show you.
And if you're an executive,they they're you know that that
sort of skepticism of, well, uhyou're just trying to make my
day difficult, you're justtrying to you know you're trying

(20:59):
to make, you know.
What and his ability to getthem aligned, you know, uh, you
know, an employee that isactually producing the furniture
was something that was a uniquetrait.
He was, you know, a uh uhbaseball player, he connected
with them on sports, he youknow, he could communicate with
them in plain um language to getacross a concept, not demean

(21:22):
them, not assume you know, notassume that their opinion didn't
matter, and create real, again,esprit de corps, you know.
And so each one of those alongthe way was an element that was
important.
And frankly, a lot of mycompetitors have been mentors
over the years, some activewhere I literally meet with them
and and they share and I share,and some who I seldom met with

(21:45):
but watched what they do from adistance.
Buddy Cheryl was anunbelievable competitor for
many, many years.
And I probably only met BuddyCheryl two or three times in my
life, but I watched what he did,studied what he did, learned a
lot from seeing how he ran hiscompany.
And um you know, I think again,if you're if you're a student
of your industry and a studentof business, um you're always

(22:08):
looking for what somebodysomething uh somebody does
that's successful and somethingthat somebody does that isn't.
Um the maybe biggest lesson Iever learned was from a company
that went out of business twice.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
Literally went bankrupt twice.

So it was a company called Furniture Brands
International.
They Henry Don, DrexelHeritage, Thomasville, Broyhill.
They were they were worldbeaters.
All the big brands.
They were, when we when I wasin the industry early, they were
the example of the successfulconglomerate.
Um they were driven out ofbusiness.
Were they family owned or allthe brands had originally been

(22:47):
family brands, but they hadgotten uh organized into a
public company.
Okay.
So this company went out ofbusiness and then it got
reassembled uh as a companycalled Heritage Home Group, all
the same brands, bought out ofbankruptcy by a private equity
firm and and sort of relabeled,and then went bankrupt again.
You know, and so you say, wow,what what kind of lesson can
there's a lot of lessons inwatching a company that goes

(23:09):
bankrupt and what they did andwhat you should maybe think
about not doing.
And we are, in many ways today,a bit of a multi-brand
conglomerate.
And they were an example of usas a public company.
And you say, Well, whatmistakes did they make that led
them to that?
So you know, and there are alot of them.
One is they probablyundervalued relationship, they
they undervalued individualbrand leadership and the

(23:32):
autonomy of each brand to findits own way stylistically and
and from a uh a marketing anddistribution standpoint.
Yep, and and we take those uhlessons and w they are bedrock
for us.
Like all of our brands haveindependent leadership and they
have their own autonomy fordirection setting.

(23:53):
Uh what they want to do from aproduct standpoint, they do.
Like I'm aware, but I don'ttell Highland House that it can
or can't do something.
Right.
I don't tell Hickory Chair whatnext new dining room table to
work on from a marketingstandpoint, from a distribution
standpoint.
Like we we work really hard tomake sure we don't think in a
homogenized way.
And you know, I think that'sreally important.

Yeah.

And so people look at us all the time and say,
why do you let that brand thatyou own compete with this other
brand that you own?
And I say, that's what makesthem sharp.
I was going to say makes themsharp.
They sharpen themselves againsteach other all day long.

So twenty years ago, twenty-five years ago,
when you came back into thefamily fold, was it under I
mean, that other company youmentioned?
Expressions.
Expressions.
But was that just century andexpressions at the time?
And all of this newness and allthese other brands are under
your guidance and leadership.

So at the time, um the family company at
that moment in time was Valdi'sWeavers, the fabric company.
Um we had just spun off um ouryarn and duct tape company.
So there's a branch of thecompany that uh at the time was
one of the country's biggestmakers of adhesive tape.
That's and so my cousins runthat business and own that

(25:05):
business today.
It's called SureTape.
And y'all would know them asduct tape.
Tape, yes.
So that's that's one branch ofthe family.
They do quite well with theadhesive tape.
Who knew?
Duct tape?
Oh, yeah.
But at the time, so we had justspun them off, so the company
was was Valdies Weaver's SentryFurniture and Expressions
Furniture.
Um and so when I came back, Iwas working for Expressions, and

(25:25):
then after a period of a fewyears, I kind of got moved back
into the Century fold uh and Iwas running some upholstery
offerings for Century.
Um and then kind of middle ofthe 2000s, um, you know, as
families do, you know, thatdifferent branches of the family
wanted different outcomes uhwith their investment.

(25:46):
And my immediate branch of thefamily was pretty dedicated to
the furniture business.
And so my father and my sistersand I bought the furniture
brand Century from the rest ofthe family.
And the rest of the family, acouple of branches, kept the
textile company along with realestate and some other assets,
and and we took home thefurniture entity in a pile of

(26:08):
debt.
So I'm very comfortable in thedebt world, um, but I like to be
debt-free because those earlylessons in the motive, it's a
motive.
That's right.
Guess what?
You great news is you own awonderful old furniture brand
that makes a small profitmargin.
Bad news is you have a pile ofdebt with Bank of America
figured out.
Um so over the next couple ofyears, that was 2013, uh, we

(26:32):
paid down all that debt, youknow, worked really hard to get
back to basically debt-free.
And a couple of years after webought Sentry, a great
competitor and another mentor,we talked about mentors earlier,
but another mentor of uh to me,Jack Glasheen and his company,
uh, which was Hancock and Moore,Jessica Charles, um, and Cabot

(26:53):
Wren um uh approached us.
We actually had had aconversation about trying to
it's another one of those.
I invited him to have coffeeone morning because I'd always
been competing with him.
And at the end of this cup ofcoffee, I was a precocious young
executive.
And I said, you know, Mr.
Glassine, it's been such adelight, you know, chatting with
you this morning.
I've learned so much.
And if and if you ever want tosell Hancock and Moore, call me.

(27:15):
Yeah, and and he sort of againkind of laughed at me, and then
a few months later reached backout uh, you know, uh, and and we
had a conversation and andended up buying Hancock and
Moore, and again, borrowing abunch of money to do it.
And then we spent the nextcouple of years paying the debt
back down and got back down tosort of debt-free again, and and

(27:35):
we had a really nice operationbetween Century and Hancock and
Jessica.
And at about that point intime, um this company I just
mentioned, uh Heritage HomeGroup, which was the the second
entity after furniture brands,was trying to sell assets
because they were on the vergeof bankruptcy again, and one of
the assets they were trying tosell was Hickory Chair.

(27:57):
Jeez.
And so they reached out to us,and we had an old history with
Hickory Chair.

I was just gonna say, how did you know that
that would be something you'dbe interested in?

Well, I had when we bought Sentry from the
rest of the family, I at thatpoint in time I had made a short
list of other brands that if weever got the opportunity, we
should be interested in.
That was on the list.
And Hickory Chair was on thelist.
Well, what put that on thelist?
So it was what did you likeabout it?
Yeah, it was one of the oldestoperating furniture companies in
the United States, founded in1911.
Um when it was founded, therewas a Schuford family member on

(28:26):
the founding charter.
We were an original owner inthe company, but shortly
thereafter the the Schufordfamily member had sold out their
shares.
Right.
In the 30s, during theDepression, um a private equity
firm out of New York had boughta group of furniture companies
down in North Carolina, and itwas the original Hickory
Manufacturing, which becameHickory White, which is now a

(28:49):
division of Cheryl, but alsoHickory Chair at the time.
And so they came down, theywere gonna liquidate the assets.
They were, you know, theclassic robber barons.
They bought it for nothing.
They were coming to town, theywere gonna liquidate all the
factories and sell everythingoff.
And my grandfather and hisbrother and another person in
town caught wind of the factthat these New York sort of

(29:11):
private equity people werecoming to town on the train to
to look at the assets they justbought and figure out how to
dissolve it.

Dismantle it, yeah.

And so my my grandfather and his brother and
this other gentleman met them atthe train station, and when
they stepped off the train,introduced themselves and said,
We will pay you two hundredthousand dollars more than you
just paid for these companies ifyou get right back on the train
and head back to New York.
The deal is done right here onthis train station.
Right.
And the guy said, quickest,easiest two hundred thousand

(29:41):
we've ever made, did the deal,got back on the train, and went
right back up to New York.
And so f for a moment in time,we owned Hickory Chair again in
the 30s.
That's but they went back tothe parlor at my grandfather's
house and divvied up thecompanies, and the other
gentleman took Hickory Chair.
You know, so we had these sortof multiple.
Like connections with HickoryChair over time.

(30:02):
And Hickory Chair had alwaysbeen one of our best
competitors.
And I mean competitor is acompetitor.
But competition's good.
Yeah, somebody we respected.
They ran a great company.
At the time before we boughtthem, Jay Reardon, who was a
legend in the business, hadreally rebuilt Hickory Chair

(30:22):
back to glory.
And what we saw was one of themarquee brands and an important
employer, excuse me, in Hickory,North Carolina, that was at
risk of losing all the good workthey'd done because they were
just caught up in a company thathad lost their way.
And so we agreed, you know, inprinciple to buy it.
We structured a deal.

(30:43):
Everything was going alongswimmingly.
And literally, the HeritageHome people caught us up in the
middle of the summer, and wewere about 30 days away from
closing the deal.
And they said, Bad news, wewant to still do our deal with
you to sell you Hickory Chair,but things are going so poorly
everywhere else that we're goingto have to file bankruptcy
before we can complete the deal.
And we said, No, just let usjust let us peel it out before

(31:05):
you do it.
Just let us complete our deal.
And they said, I'm sorry, it'sjust we're draining too much
money.
We're going to file bankruptcyon Monday, like four days later.
And so then we had to becomethe stalking horse in the
auction process.
And we got a whole neweducation.
Drug out for months and months,and you know, and it was the
whole bankruptcy auction incourt and the whole deal.

(31:25):
And which we had, by the way,it was another chapter in my uh
MBA that I didn't actually go toschool to get.
And we ended up in the endactually being able to acquire
Hickory Chair, but then we hadto go out and do a PR campaign
that, hey, Hickory Chair is inreally good shape.
They were just caught up inthis company.
We own them now.
It's okay, trust us, you know.

(31:46):
And and that's been, I think,one of our strategies as we look
at companies to buy is A, wewant to we want to buy good
companies with good people,right?
We want companies that controltheir means of production, which
is important to us.
We run nine factories up inNorth Carolina.
We're we're makers offurniture, and so we feel pretty
strongly about that.

(32:06):
But we don't ever want to buysomething so broken that it
distracts us from our primarycompanies and then causes us to,
after we fix the broken thing,to have a problem on the main
ships.
Um and and Hickory Chair wasthat way.
They were a great company, theywere just caught up in a bad
situation.
The other thing we we want toprovide is safe harbor for the

(32:31):
sort of classic legacy brands inthe industry.
We think there's somethingwonderful about these brands
that have been around fordecades.
And that the the up-and-comingconsumers of furniture in this
in the industry andup-and-coming designers, when
they're told the story of thelegacy, they begin to appreciate
what that means because most ofthat hundred-plus year history

(32:52):
of Hickory Chair goes into theirproduct that they make today.
Like you can't replace ahundred years of knowledge,
right?
And and that sort of inertiaand legacy and how they go about
things.
You know, and for us to haveenough competitive brands in the
upper end that people,consumers, still see it as a

(33:13):
space to buy it.

The names.
Right?

If if all those brands go away, because
Henry Don, Henry Don, which alot of young designers won't
even know today, when I was inthe industry, was the upper end
brand.
They were they were, you know,owning Henry Don was you really
made it in life.
They were a 200 plus milliondollar company selling the
finest furniture made inAmerica.

(33:36):
They don't exist today.

I know, that's what breaks my heart.
Incredible.
It really does.

And if you'd have told my father and my
uncle, who competed with HenryDon for 40 years that that
company, by the time that theirnephew son was running Century,
that that competitor would notexist, they would have lashed
you out of the room.
It was inconceivable that acompany that strong and that
iconic, it would be like Why doyou think they don't exist now?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

It was it was a lot of choices made over a
long So no one decision can killa company as good as Henry Don,
right?
You you've got to stringtogether twenty-five bad
choices.
Bad decision.
Very true.
I mean, it's just you have towork at converting bad.
It was just too too strong.
And you know, and so there wasa lot of, I think, timing
challenges, a lot of decisionsmade that didn't pan out well.

(34:26):
Uh I'm sure the people involvedin the company at the time
would point to the offshoring ofproduction that happened in the
late 90s, early 2000s as a as acomponent in it.
I mean, so a combination of badluck, bad decisions, bad
timing, you know, and thenownership that at the time, you
know, was challenged withunderstanding an industry that

(34:49):
is very nuanced, right?
From from the outside, I thinkinvestors see furniture and
think it's it's heavily branded,it's a big uh uh dollar
purchase.
We ought to be able to driveefficiency and make a lot of
money.
Like why can't we just do whatLouis Vuitton does.
I was just gonna say, like LVMHgroup does.
They look at other luxury hoodsand they go, This we should be

(35:11):
able to have huge margins inthis business.
And what they underappreciateis that it's incredibly
competitive to the point wherethe margins are very, very low.
You know, that uh my staff willtell you, I I kind of laugh,
that you know, if you want to bein the hall of fame in the
furniture industry, you makefour to five percent profit for
ten years in a row and they'llput you in the hall of fame.
Four or five percent profitmargins in the industry that is

(35:34):
as difficult as this one.
And if you want to get run outof town, then you lose four or
five percent for three years ina row and they'll run you out of
town.
Right.
But success or failure in ourindustry is less than seven or
eight percent swing on themargin side.
And and so, you know, and theother thing that they
underappreciate is the thedistribution world is very fra

(35:55):
it's thousand mom and pop retailstores and design firms and
showrooms and and those are alldriven by trust and
relationship, right?
Because when they come to thefurniture market in High Point,
they have a thousand choices forwho to buy from.

So crazy, yeah.

And so all of that is relationship, low
margin, and then high turnover,meaning we're on a fashion cycle
twice a year coming out withnew product and all the
development that goes with it,and all the inventory risk that
comes with it.
But an outsider doesn't see allthat.
They just see bigmulti-thousand dollar
transactions and brandedmerchandise, and we ought to be
able to kill it.

(36:31):
Get one of our MBAs off thebench, some some guy, some lady
that was educated at Harvard,plop them in there, and they'll
they'll fix this and they'll runit smoothly and we'll make a
ton of money.

There's one thing you didn't say which I think
has a big factor in it, isstorytelling.
Storytelling is allowed storiesbehind the business, stories
behind the name, stories behindthe items and the furniture.
I've always been a firmbeliever in selling anything.
Yeah.
If you've got a great story,because a story people will
tell, you know, they'll telltheir friend that story, and
then that friend will tellanother person that's how that

(37:00):
brand grows.
And I agree with you.
Your brands, and I know thatI've heard uh a podcast that you
were on.
I you're a believer in storiesand stories about just the
individual items.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Yeah.
And I think there's anauthenticity around the ability
to even tell a story.
Like that you know, that thereare a lot of quickly developed
companies that have sort of amarketing position, but they
don't have a legacy and a storybehind them.

No, and that's what's so special.

The story behind the entity itself, and
then and then how a product wasdeveloped how it came to be,
right?
We we work with a lot of greatum product designers out there,
and you know, they're passionateabout the item, you know, the
object, the why, the why thereis that little step detail in
the carving around the moldingof the top.
And one of my favorites isThomas O'Brien, who is maybe the

(37:51):
finest furniture designer whois an interior designer that you
know maybe has ever walked theindustry.
You know, and and every elementof every piece for him is not
accidental.
It's very purposeful.

Intentional.

Intentional.
And if you leave it out, he'sgonna notice from across the
room.
And I remember that.

Yeah.

One of the first things we ever developed
for him are uh our productengineers, uh, you know, is a
small table and there was thislittle step detail, and you
know, and they didn't have theright tooling to do it just the
size he drew it, and so theyused a knife that you know cut
that step detail that wasdifferent, it was just a little
thicker.
And they said, Well, look, it'ssave us a few hundred dollars.
We don't have to cut a newknife, it's no big deal, it's

(38:33):
not important.
And he walked in the room, wehad 12, 14 people in the room
for this product developmentreview meeting, and from 25 feet
away, he stopped and looked atthe table and he said, The
molding's not right.
The engineers, of course, rightoff the bat were like, Well,
no, no, it's right, you know,and he was like, No, no, it's
not right.
Get the detail out and somebodygive me a ruler.

Yeah, that's what I always say to on the job
sites.

Where's my where's my give me my ruler and
where's my detail?
Where's my field plan?
Um, because those thingsmatter.
And then the engineer thought,why would anybody notice
Thomas's response when we gotinto discussion about it later
is that that's a bad thing.
That's right.
Don't don't allow yourself toslip like that.
And also, it's the combinationof all the details in that table

(39:19):
that make the whole a beautifulthing.
And and once you start lettingone or two of those details go,
right, there's a point where ittips, right?
And you may not be able torecognize that that detail
completes it, but you just knowit's beautiful.
And every time you removesomething, it's a little less
so, and eventually it becomesless sellable and not sellable,
and then not attractive, andthen not a table you want to

(39:40):
develop.

Each and every other detail, just elevating
that's right more.

Every time you are purposeful, and you know,
and so I that storytelling ofthe why on the item, the
storytelling of the why on thecollection, the why on the
brand, the who we are, um, andthen the connection of all that
back through relationship.
You know, that when you walkinto one of our showrooms at
market, you typically see thesame faces.
Like we we're big believers andwe want our people to be with

(40:07):
us a long time.
If you walk through ourfactories and do factory tours,
we have 35-year employees,40-year employees.
We have we have a 53-yearemployee right now working in
our main office at Century who'sbeen with us.
I'm 52 years old.
She started a year before I wasborn.
So amazing Debbie, if you're ifyou're listening, Debbie, uh,
shout out to you.

(40:28):
But like that, that is the thesort of bedrock of the company
is that tribal knowledge, and itgets handed down.
We do a retirement breakfast,so our retirees come back to
Century a couple of times a yearand we'll feed them and we tell
them how the company's doing.
And you know, these are peoplethat have been retired 10, 15,
20 years.
Right, but we probably love theroom with retirees.

(40:48):
And I tell them at the end ofevery breakfast, um, I say,
look, thank you for being here.
Thank you for caring about usand for letting us stand on your
shoulders.
And if you continue to want tohelp the company, when you're
out in the community and you seea great young person who is
earnest and wants to find acompany that they want to make a
career with, send them our way.

(41:09):
Said, I don't really care whattheir skill set is, I care what
their personality is.
If they show up on time, theywant to learn, they want to work
hard, you'll know who they areand put in a good word for us
because you pay it forward bygetting us the next you that'll
be with us for 30 or 40 years.
So we can't.

You could do all the things that are the right
things.
Right.
And a lot of things that peopledon't even think about doing or
don't want to put the effortinto doing.
Yeah.

It's the culture piece, right?

And that word gets it gets tossed around a
lot, but I think at its rootagain, that goes back to
stories, because people willtell that story.
I retired 10 years or fiveyears ago, and I would came back
for a breakfast.
And they'll tell five friends,and those friends will say they
took you back for a breakfast.
That's right.
And you retired there fiveyears ago, what kind of company?

I may send Billy over there.
I might send Jane over therebecause and I think you know,
for me, culture is a real simplething to define.
It's what your people do whenyou're not around to keep an eye
on them.
Yeah.
It's like, do they make theextra effort?
Do they pick up the piece oftrash or walk past it?
Do they, you know, it's whenthey're not being watched, how

(42:19):
do they carry themselves?
Right.

And do they have that heart in them?
You know, Scott and I both camefrom family businesses, and I
appreciate that so tremendously.
And one thing I love aboutiDesign Lab and all the
wonderful representatives ofbusinesses, and even the ones I
meet with regularly in theoffice, a lot of them are
family-ran operations.

(42:43):
And I feel like the industry,even though it's been my world
for so many years, my whole lifereally, I feel like it's an
untapped industry at the sametime.
Like I feel like it's not theone people are talking about all
the time or the one you don'treally hear about.
You know, and I just part ofwith iDesign Lab is really

(43:03):
selling that story that this isa family industry and a great
place to hang your hat.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.

And it's and it's unlike a lot of industries,
it's a very tightly networkedindustry that people are
supportive of each other, um,that there's a great community
thread that runs through it.
Like, I mean, some of my uhgood friends are some of my you
know biggest competitors, youknow, and we look between the

(43:31):
hours of eight and five, we'retrying to, you know, get each
other's floor sampleopportunity, you know, figure
out how to get more of ourbusiness from them.
And you know, but before andafter, we we share information
all the time.
Like how, you know, do you needto come by and look at a piece
of equipment?
What are you doing in this areafrom a healthcare standpoint?
Right.
You know, just trying to makesure that the overall industry

(43:51):
is healthy.
And then I think that networkand relationship back with our
customers uh and then among ourcustomers with each other, it's
different than you see in a lotof other industries that have
become very uh uh sort ofpolarized, just two or three
brands dominating it.
Um the the last of the greatsort of cottage industries that

(44:13):
is scaled large.
I mean it's a huge industry.
It's a fifty billion dollarindustry, but it's a cottage
industry.
It is, it is what I think itmakes it sort of fun.
So and there's no better placeto see that.
You go to the trade shows andit's just no you know, people
you know, people that haven'tseen each other in a year or six
months, and oh my god, how areyou doing?
Let's go have a drink, let'scatch up.
It is oh what are you doingabout this in your business?

(44:35):
How are you using these tools?
Or what are you doing onInstagram?
You know, and and people aresharing and they're networking,
and it's and it's really prettyfabulous.

So as you know, the industry is continuing to
grow as I are.
How do you um see like thefuture with the growth?
I mean, it's interestingbecause I do talk to reps who
come in and you know, like Iknow Cravit was recently
purchased, which kind of shockedme, I guess.
I don't know why.

(45:03):
I guess I was kind of in lovewith their family story too.

And you know, you just start to wonder,
especially since I first startedin the industry, everything was
more segregated, and now it'sall kind of I think, you know,
and I mean the Kravitz are goodfriends, wonderful family, um,
and are still obviously veryinvolved in the business.
I I think w their situation isis sort of a a good example.

(45:30):
Like businesses reach a certainsize where it's not a guarantee
that the next generation is uhnecessarily going to want to run
it or be ready to run it orwhatever the case may be.
And it may be that that nextleg of the journey needs to be
in partnership with you knowanother group.
And um I don't know the thepeople that bought into Kravit.

(45:53):
I know the Kravitz kept a largeshare of the company themselves
and are still involved, but Ithink the group, as I hear them
described, is very interested inoperating businesses and you
know, and I think you know, kindof famously they've also
they've got a rug company theyown and a lighting company, and
they're trying to knit togethera nice group.
Um but even even our family,when we look at you know where

(46:15):
we are, we've got a you know,we've we've built a business
that's now big enough andcomplex enough that it's you
know that that it's hard to run.
It like fortunately we've got alot of good people and they
overcome my bad management.
Um But at the end of the day,it's it's a it's a big, messy
company.
We have 1,700 employees, ninefactories, five different

(46:35):
management teams, you know, it'sa big old cacophony of chaos
that happens to work.
How many brands are what arethe So the total brand portfolio
is is really kind of sevenbrands, and and there's six of
them that are residentialfacing.
So Century, Hickory Chair,Highland House, Hancock and
Moore, Jessica Charles, andMaitland Smith.
And then we have a commercialbrand called Cabot Wren uh with

(47:00):
a little sub brand called St.
Timothy's, and they sell uhcommercial seating for office
and country clubs and things ofthat nature.
We show that brand up atNeocon.
Um but the other brands are youknow, there's sort of all this
sort of commingled, each with alittle bit of an identity.
Um, but each one of them has,again, that that sort of
self-directed autonomy, uh,which is wonderful because it

(47:23):
makes us, I think, vibrant.
But it's it's also you canimagine sometimes the sub you
know all the kids fight witheach other.
So you know, and sometimes wehave to get in a room and we
have to talk it out.

Like, hey, you're do they all have their own
separate offices and differentoffices, separate sales
managers, separate marketingstaff, separate sales rooms.
Do you share any of the uhmanufacturing between them?

Some of the brands sell uh share a little
bit of manufacturing, so they'refabrics.
That's right.
We do allow famously we allowyou to move all the fabrics
around between brands.
Um but uh we we operate legallyin three silos.
So the there's a CenturyHighland House legal entity, and
then there's a Hickory Chairlegal entity, and then there's a

(48:03):
Hancock and more JessicaCharles Maitland Smith legal
entity that also rolls up CabotRen there, and then those three
legal entities are all owned bythe Rock House company, the
parent company.
And then so my day job is sortof CEO of Rock House, but I'm
also president of SentryFurniture.
So I'm down there amongst thebrand presidents fighting it out
with the other brandpresidents.

That's funny.

Which is funny, yeah.
So we you know it's a lot offun, and it and uh you know, and
again, it keeps us, I think,vibrant because each of those
brands is exploring, and andoftentimes we're stepping on
each other's toes because ifsomebody sees something in the
zeitgeist of the customer basethat is becoming interesting and
popular, hopefully I've gotenough smart brand presidents

(48:47):
that more than one person isseeing it and they're pursuing
the same thing.
And then we'll get that well, Isaw it first and I want to do
it, and you know, well, whydon't you keep them?
You know, no, no, no.
Let's see who does it better.
Like chase it.
Let's, you know, if that'swhat's popular, if that's what
our designers and oursalespeople are interested in,
then by all means, let's havemultiple boats chasing that

(49:08):
point in the in the on thehorizon.
Um but yeah, no, I think one ofthe things in this business
that you know is is sort of thecalling card for young people to
get in it for is that thatfeeling of community and that
ability to make a difference.
Because look, I I get that it'sappealing to go after a big

(49:29):
Fortune 500 job and you knowyou're gonna but if you are
creative, if you are somebodythat is empathetic, that knows
how to connect with people, uh aAI-proof job of the future is
somebody that can interact withother human beings in a
personable way.

Speaker 5 (49:45):
Right.

Because guess what?
If you can do your jobcompletely behind a computer
screen remotely, probably someversion of the future JAT GPT is
going to be able to do thatbetter than being cheaper.
But if part of your job and somuch of design and so much of
furniture is that thatinteraction with the client,
that ability to see them, feelthem, understand them, you know,

(50:06):
administer a project, make sureit goes smoothly, be physically
on site while the draperyinstaller is there, and the
countertop people, like that isan in-person, human-to-human
job, and it's not going to bereplaced by AI tools.
Now, it may be enhanced by AItools.
But it won't be replaced.

And I've, you know, that's been some of my own
research that I've been comingacross that it's really an
industry that really AI won'ttap into.
And and I think that should becelebrated as having teenage
daughters.
You know, I like we keeppushing towards like a high
point concept for college andlike learn life skills.
Learn life skills.

(50:45):
And, you know, I just like wantto bring in, you know, as much
information for this industry.
Where do you see designers andconsumers as part of the
industry growth for you and yourbrands?

I mean, the biggest part of what we do is we
sell to and through the trade.
You know, so we have corporateshowrooms around the country,
great agent partners around thecountry that are our sort of
physical representation in thelocal markets.
We sell a lot of wonderfuldesign firms through those
networks that are vibrant, thatare, that are interacting with
what I would say is the uppersort of uh layer of consumers.

(51:26):
Um, you know, and we'reobviously a luxury products
company, so we're, you know,we're we're sort of focused on
that niche.
Um but a lot of our retailersare are figuring out how to
remake themselves and do abetter job of capturing the sort
of uh excitement component thathas to go along with luxury
sales these days.
And you know, and that wasn'tthe case when I first got back

(51:48):
in the business.
A lot of the retail stores thatwere out there, you know, had
suspect housekeeping.
You'd walk in and it wasunderwhelming.
They had they had a lot ofspace, but they might not be
using that space wisely.
Totally.
You know, and and sums up theinterests.
That's right.
So and I think that transitionis afoot right now where where

(52:10):
people are realizing, and andpartly credit to Gary Friedman
and what he did with restorationhardware, credit to John Reed
and what he did with our house.
But you know, what those uh mobbrand retailers do really well
is is they make the spacebeautiful in which they show
their product.
Without it.
So when you walk in, you'reinspired.

(52:31):
And I think our retailers umhad to relearn that lesson.

Right.

You know, it's not about just the bulk of
space.
Right.
It's about how well you utilizeit.
Is it inspiring?
That's right.
And and does it reflect to thathigh-end customer uh confidence
that this is somebody that Ifeel like can handle a
transaction for me?
Because every other productthat they buy is bought from
someone that reflects back tothem a feeling of of you know of

(52:58):
high-end execution.
You walk into a Mercedes-Benzdealership and it is reflecting
precision and confidence.
You walk into a Louis Vuitton,you know, store and it is
reflecting that same thing.
And and so that elevation, andI think we're in the early
stages of it of retailre-elevating from a display

(53:19):
standpoint will, I hope, createa revitalization in U.S.
furniture retail.
Um the design side, I think, isalways going to be strong.
I think if you are um if you'redoing anything more than simply
buying a couple of pieces thathave have have worn out in your
house, if you're doing a room oryou're doing a floor or you're

(53:40):
doing a house, you want somebodyto administer that for you.
You know, and and part ofadministration is somebody with
great taste that's saying, no,let's do A and not B.
You know, and again we talk AI.
AI can render your room 400times.
Right.
But it can't tell you whichone's in good taste.
No.
So the designer needs to dothat.
But even more importantly, thenit's the designer that says,
okay, we've put togethersomething beautiful.

(54:02):
Now we actually have to make ita physical reality.
And that's a journey.
It is a journey.
If you've been on that journeyever alone, it is arduous and
lonely and full of mistakes.

And it shouldn't be walked alone.
I feel like I try to paint thatpicture all the time.
That again, I kind of repeatthat this industry still has so
much growth because you knowwe'll spend money on clothing,
like you said, a car.
And then when it comes to likeselling a room or a sofa, people
are like, well, I mean,meanwhile, that's your life.

(54:35):
That is your more time on thatsofa than you do in your car.

Correct.
More time on that sofa than youdo almost anything else.

Exactly.

And I think most people keep that sofa for
way too long, but replace itmore frequently.
Right, right.

Exactly.

No, absolutely.
You're making a decision thatis going to influence your
happiness at the beginning andend of every day and your most
important time.
You know, uh look, there's alot of cultures who have a
history of this idea that spaceis a is a health component.
It it's something that can makeyou live better, live longer,
and live healthier, you know,and the Japanese famously so,

(55:11):
but lots of cultures.
I think in America we're wakingup to that, but we haven't
appreciated it as much as weshould.
That beauty around you willlift your spirits.
Being a better, more positiveperson will make your life
healthier and happier.
If you are healthier andhappier, you're likely to live
longer.
I mean, it's just And it's thepride thing too.

You work hard, you spend your hard-earned money
on curate in a beautifulcurated space on quality
products.
Like it makes you want toentertain, it makes you want to
keep you know, you'recomfortable in that pride, I
guess.

I have never been disappointed in life when I
spend a little bit more forsomething nicer.
You know, and and at the likein the moment, you you go, uh,
and you you sort of squint andyou go, should I?
But then on the back side ofit, I'm always a big thing.

The reward is there.

By myself into a nicer hotel room, I'm always
happier.
A little bit nicer meal, I'malways happier.
Nicer pair of pants, alwayshappier.
Nicer pair of shoes, I'll, youknow, and and you know, same
thing.
Like, could I get a dollar acup of coffee or can I go get a
five dollar cup of coffee?
I'm happier at the end of thecoffee.

It is so much.
It is, it's all based in thatexperience.

But to your point about a designer, a
designer is a companion to comealong with you on your design
journey, who is, you know, aguide, uh, a sherpa to make sure
that things go smoothly andwell, that you end up at the
destination that you want to endup at, which may not be the
destination you set off to endup at.
But along that way, you'resharing it, of course, with your

(56:40):
partner, your spouse, and yourfamily, but you're also sharing
it with this designer whobecomes this like this lifestyle
coach.

Yes.

Right?
And oftentimes, and I talk topeople a lot that have designers
that they've worked with fordecades, and they are some of
their closest friends andconfidants.
And when they list theiradvisors, they say, my
accountant, my lawyer, mydesigner, and my doctor.
And I'm like, wow.

It's true, but all of them are wonderful
relationships that continue,evolve, and that process should
be fun.

Like you're you're redoing your house.
Like, guess what?
It's not gonna all happen ontime.
Something is gonna go wrongalong the way.
Like, roll with it, enjoy it asa process.
I I I'm a well, I'd like to sayI'm a big fisherman.
I am a fisherman who's not thatgood at it.
But part of going fly fishingis not the two fish you're gonna
catch.

(57:32):
It's the day of going flyfishing it's the art of the
outfit.
It's like getting your gearready ahead of time.
It's it's driving there andenjoying the beauty, it's
putting your waders on andgetting your rod set up, it's
walking down to the river, it'sfiguring out what fly you're
gonna- Taking it all in.
It's not the minute and a halfwhere you catch the fish, it's
the day of fishing.
And that's the same thing indesign.

(57:54):
It's the process, it's fun,it's interesting.

And there's just so much beauty out there.
I mean, I wish I could takeevery client to a high point
showroom.
You know, I wish people couldsee all that beauty that is out
there.
And I hope that as a designteam, you know, that's what we
do bring to the table, bringthem, you know, all this extra

(58:18):
elegance that is out there.
Because even with therestoration hardware of the
world, I mean, I get a littleit's it's you know, it's again
trying to pigeonhole uh con youknow, it's like the cookie
cutter house mentality, which Iunderstand.
They have their looking look,but I'm all wanting to like.
There's so much more varietyout there.

And is their look appropriate for some
people?
Sure.
But not for everybody.
And the amount of pattern andcolor and and surface detail and
you know the and that's againin our industry, it's the
cacophony.
It's all of the differentinstruments in that orchestra
where you walk into a show andyou go, My goodness, you know,
we have not fallen prey tohomogenization as an industry

(59:05):
where everybody has to look thesame.
Find your identity, be unique,do something that makes you
happy.
Don't buy page 32.

Right.

Do you, right?
Do you.

I like that.
So with the social media worldwe live in, I always say, like,
you know, people are your ownbrand now from literally from
childhood.
These kids are on there.
Do you guys use social media asa big tool?

We do.
I don't I don't know that weuse it as well as we could, but
I think probably every companyCEO says that.
Um it's a fundamental part ofour marketing and our messaging
and and our storytelling, as wementioned earlier, and and we're
trying to show some behind thescenes, you know, what it looks
like what's happening in thefactory, what's happening in the
showrooms, uh trying to connectpeople back to us.

(59:54):
Um, but I think that revolutionof democratization.
Of customer access.
You know, and it it's beentough, obviously, for our
shelter magazine partners.
It used to be if you wanted toput your image and your message
in front of a customer, you hadto go through architectural
digest or traditional home orwhoever it was.

(01:00:15):
And it was expensive, so it wasdone infrequently, it was hard
to do.
Nowadays you can get yourmessage out there incredibly
easily and affordably.
But because you they're notthese only sort of narrow, bully
pulpits, the you have thesenarrow pipelines like they used
to be in the past.
Now it's everybody has the sameaccess.
The audience is smaller andsmaller.

(01:00:37):
Where, you know, if you ran anad and still today, if you run
an ad in architectural digest,you know, hundreds of thousands
of people may see it.
If you go put something up onon Instagram, well, you know,
dozens and dozens of people maysee it.
You know, so you have to bemore active and it's changed the
way we think.
Uh again, are we good at it?
We're okay.
Can we be better for sure?

(01:00:58):
Do I think it's an improvementover what used to exist?
It's like everything.
It's better in some ways andworse in others.

Tiffany Woolley (01:01:05):
Right.

Alex Shuford III (01:01:05):
Um and we're we're still big fans of our
Shelter magazine friends.
We're about to do, uh matter offact, the the flower show house
in Nashville with a lot of ourpartners.
Uh and I think a lot of thosemedia properties have figured
out how to go beyond just theprinted publication.
Now they they are eventorganizers, they're experience
organizers, you know, and thentheir printed publication is

(01:01:28):
sort of this platform that theythen showcase all this
experience creation they do.
And so they've evolved.
Um and that's the you know, Itell our young people all the
time that you know, look, Idon't know what it's gonna look
like in three years, but I canguarantee you it's gonna be 100%
different than it is today,dramatically so.
And we need to be nimble, weneed to be comfortable with

(01:01:50):
evolution, we need to be willingto break parts of our business
and throw parts of our businessaway and engage with new things
and experiment and and m messup.
Like I trust me, I before 10o'clock every morning I mess up
four or five times, right?
And some of them are quiteexpensive.
It's like but you gotta youhave to be durable enough to
survive them and you have to becomfortable enough with risk

(01:02:11):
that you're willing to roll thedice.
Um and the companies that getrigid and and start to move into
the protectionist mentality.
Let's just not lose any of whatwe've gathered.
Right.
Well, guess what?
They're always gonna leakbetween your fingers, and if you
squeeze harder, they leakfaster.
So it's much better to say, bewilling to lose it all, you
know, be willing to lose bigchunks of it and and be out

(01:02:31):
there.
Take the risk.
And it's very hard for ouryoung executives because I think
they've grown up in a veryrisk-averse world.
You get the right grade, go tothe right school, do the right
situation, like always do theright situation.
Yeah, and and you know, alwaysget a trophy for, you know, but
sometimes you're gonna lose.
And when you lose, it's okay.
And and we spend a lot of timeuh talking about what we did

(01:02:55):
wrong in a very easy,comfortable conversation.
But why did that not work?
We thought we thought that sofawas gonna be wonderful.
No one bought it.
Why?
Let's let's audit our ownproblem.
You know, what did what did weget wrong about it?
We thought that marketingmessage would really land, but
my gosh, the comments on socialmedia are terrible.
Like, what did we miss here?
Um we thought this new brandthat we were gonna stand up was

(01:03:17):
gonna be this huge success, youknow, because uh for me and for
a lot of people, the failuresthat we've had are a whole lot
more constructive than thesuccesses we've had.
And uh and I want to teach thatto our our next generation that
it's okay to put yourself outthere, to take responsibility,
to have it not work out, and toraise your hand and say, I'm

(01:03:40):
sorry, but I've thought throughit.
I think I did these two orthree things differently, um,
and I should have done them thisway.
I want to try again, that gritto get back up, make it sleep on
the Scotts towels boxes for afew nights, figure it out, re
reshelve the shelves and putsomething else there next to the
cash register, because what Ihad right there no one's buying.

(01:04:00):
Right.
Write it those lessons youlearn.
It was a great book.
I'm curious if you ever readit.
Um, it was by a uh author namedPaco Underhill, and it's called
Why We Buy.
And it's about the science ofretail.
And as a former grocery storeowner, it would be right up your
alley.

Scott Woolley (01:04:15):
I I just finished writing a book called it's
called Pitch Sell Sold.

Pitch Sell Sold.
I'll look it up.
That's cool.
But yeah, the the why we buy, alot of it is the psychology of
where you place a product, howit's packaged, that whole like
the psychology of all thosethings that matter.
And there's a great lesson inthere when I was a retailer of
if you put your aisles too closetogether and you put a product
mid-aisle, and a lady has toreach down to grab it, she's

(01:04:42):
concerned about somebody bumpinginto her from behind, and she
will not do that.
And so you have to give herspace to reach down to grab a
product, and if you don't, thenthat product placement
mid-location, which you think iswonderful because it's
reachable, is terrible.
And you'll kill your productsales.
And you go, my goodness.

Well, just being on the bottom shelf compared to
eye level.
Bottom left eye level.

Everybody used to think that putting it right
in a pop-up display right assomebody comes in the store, but
it takes them 20, 30 feet tolike gather themselves and get
their wits about them.
So that first ten feet isuseless.
And well, they see it on theway out.
Well, they're already past thecash register, it's too late.
You know, it's just those thosebasics.
And I it always fascinated me.
It's like the the psychology ofhow you make somebody see,

(01:05:26):
feel, and want your product, andthen post-purchase, how do you
deliver in a way that makes themwant to repeat?
And you know, our brands arevery much that way, which is we
survive because people's parentsowned Hickory Chair in Century.
Oh, yeah.
And then they bought a piece ofthe thing.
That was back to the story.
That's right.
Trust and confidence that,well, why did you choose us over

(01:05:49):
another brand?
Well, because because I'veheard about you from others that
love what they bought from you.
Or I made a purchase four orfive years ago, and now I'm
ready to add to it, and that hasheld up so well, and my
experience has been so good withit that I want to buy again
from you.
Very different from thedisposable.
We're we're durable.
So and with a durable purchase,it has to continue to provide

(01:06:11):
delight and enjoyment over along period of time.
Because if it in six months itstarts to fail on you, well, you
have failed the durablepurchase test.
Right.
Right.

So I have to ask you one last question.
You know, everyone gets a jobfor the first time where they
get hired to be run a company.
You got hired to run a company,but it wasn't just running a
company, it was running acompany that your family
started, your grandfatherstarted.
How did that weigh on you?
Does it still to this day?
Still to this day.
Absolutely.

Um Because that's a lot I I feel to carry.
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
It was a lot of anxiety.
And I you know, so when theywhen they put me in charge, so I
had worked there for a whileand and then when when we bought
Century from the rest of thefamily at that point in time,
you know, my dad made mepresident and said, All right,
you know, don't mess it up.

Did you ever have a goal of wanting to run your
family's business?

I think early.
Um but at some point uh whileworking at Century in various uh
different layers or levels, youknow, I started to have that
aspiration that I that I thoughtI could.
Right.
Right.
You you end up with sort ofvague goal of, well, maybe one
day if it's possible, and thenyou start to get the confidence
that well I think I could dothis.

(01:07:24):
And then as any sort ofmid-level executive will tell
you that over time you seeenough decisions that you think
you would have made differentlythat you start thinking, well, I
maybe not only do I think Ican, but I think I might be able
to even do it better.
Um but then when you get youget handed the keys, you go,
literally, ooh, hang on.

(01:07:44):
And there's a moment of ofanxiety, and and I was I'm very
comfortable in risk.
Um, you know, so you know, I ashobbies, you know, I was a rock
climber and a mountain biker,and you know, and you know, like
plunging off a cliff and notknowing what's at the bottom was
something that you know and andthen that sort of carried over
into getting into my own retailoperation and you know, which

(01:08:05):
you know, like that that sort oftolerant um risk kind of
mindset is I think an importantpart of my early running of
century, which was, you know, wewere rolling the dice.
We, you know, we were buyingthis furniture company and it
was at an interesting timebecause it was post-the 2008-9
housing collapse.
We had not completely rebuiltthe revenue level of the

(01:08:27):
company, and here you are, goodluck, and by the way, there's a
pile of debt figured out.
Um, I had some pretty goodshepherds, some pretty good
mentors.
Uh, but for that first five,six months, what I did is sort
of I I I kind of doubled down onwhat I knew.
Like I was a product guy, Iknew the upholstery side really
well, um, I knew the customerand what they were dealing with

(01:08:50):
because I had come from retail.
You know, and so I thinkanytime you get that anxiety of,
you know, gosh, I could make adecision big enough here to to
lose the company, you sort ofdouble down on you know the
bedrocks uh of what you'velearned before.
But but probably the bigger onefor me was not really
post-purchase of century, butthe scariest time of my career
was the pandemic in May when wewere forced to shut the

(01:09:15):
factories down.
So the government order camein, and you know, a good example
is our our case goods factoryin Hickory, North Carolina has
never been closed for more thana week at a time since 1949,
right?
And there I was in week three,and when I mean shut down, it
was everything was shut down.
It was the air compressors wereshut down, that it it didn't

(01:09:37):
hum.
You know, even when it shutdown for holiday for a week, you
know, the there's all thesesystems that are still running,
it's still noisy, it's still Imean, it was dead quiet, dead
dark, no one coming in to work,and I would drive in just
because I couldn't sit at home,so I'd drive in, park my car,
unlock the factory, and I wouldjust walk around just to kind of
get my head straight.
And I'd do it almostobsessively every day.

(01:09:59):
I'd walk, I'd drive to theoffice, and our case goods
factory, it's huge, eight, ninehundred squirrel thousand square
foot building connected to themain office.
So I I'd sit in my office, I'dget you know kind of twitchy,
and I'd walk out in the factory,and I'd just walk the whole
factory.
I'd just make it almost like adaily ritual.
And uh every day I'd think,it's got to reopen.

It's gonna be you know and then those other
documentary in that in what wewere talking about.
It was uh it was a interestingstory.

Yeah, and and but that fear of if it doesn't
reopen, that's that's kind of onme.
Like there'll be extenuatingcircumstances, but history will
still write that like it closed,never reopened, and it was Alex
Schuford III running it when itdid, third generation, and here
it is.
And you know, and so that thatdetermination to figure it out,

(01:10:49):
to you know, like we will uh isa funny story when when we
finally got the order to be ableto reopen the facility.

How much time passed?

We were closed for a total, I think, of five
weeks.
We were able for one week inthe tail end to kind of reopen
and and then close back down,kind of pulse our way back open.
Um you know, but the longeststretch was I think we were
pushing three and a half uh tonearly four weeks where we were
closed down completely.
And that was that affectemployees.

(01:11:20):
We we continued to pay most ofour we didn't get a we were too
big to get a PPP loan.
Um so a little known fact, butany company over a thousand
employees uh didn't qualify fora loan.
Um and so I was prettyirritated about it.
We had done everything that thegovernment had told us to do,
keep jobs in America, employpeople, et cetera.

(01:11:41):
And then when when it came downto it, they said, Yeah, you did
too good a job, you have toomany employees, no loans for
you.
So but we we figured it out.
Um we kept the employees uh ownuh the payroll, we you know, we
did all those things that youkind of needed to do to retain
your ability to reopen.
You know, but it was tough.
We we did salary cuts acrossall of our management team.

(01:12:01):
Everybody shared in the pain.
You know, and and and then whenwe reopened, it was, you know,
it's difficult to get peopleback in the swing.
Sometimes you don't know if thesystems you turn back on are
gonna run again.
You know, that the compressorhadn't been shut down for 15
years.
Will it start back up?
Will that will that router runwhen we go to restart it up?
You know, but the day before wewere restarting all the

(01:12:25):
factories.
Um, and we were super excited,and we had all the management
team together, and we read thethe executive order on the
requirements to restart.
And one of them was that youhad to take the temperature of
everybody that came into yourfactory, a touch list
temperature.
And we said, geez, how manythermometers do we have?
And we sent everybody out tocount thermometers.

(01:12:45):
We had like three touchlessbecause no one had infrared
thermometers.
And we said, Oh, panic.
You know, we have to havesomething like 29 thermometers
to cover all the places ouremployees come in.
So we were like, everybody goout and buy thermometers.
And we're all on cell phonescalling each other, and there
were no touchless thermometersavailable at any pharmacy in a
three-county area.

(01:13:06):
We kept going further andfurther out, and I was just
dejected.
At the end of the day, it'swhatever, 3:30.
We can't find any thermometers,we're not going to be able to
open because we can't takepeople's temperature.
Is this really my life?
And I'm standing in a Walmartand I'm looking in, I'm in the
pharmacy and I'm looking outacross the Walmart, just shaking
my head, and I see against thefar back wall, there's a

(01:13:28):
children's department.
And I was like, I wonder ifthey have thermometers in the
children's department.
And so I walk over to the kidsand children department and I'm
looking around, and next to thislittle display of like
strollers, there's a little walland it's got thermometers
sitting there.

Oh god blood.

They're sold out in the pharmacy, but no one
thought to go to the babysection.
And I bought all three of themthey had, and I got on the cell
phone and I called everybody.
I said, go to the walldepartment, go to the kids'
department.
They've got thermometers.
And we came back and everybodyhad arm, we poured them all out
on the conference room table.
We must have had 40thermometers.
And we were literally dancingin the boardroom.

(01:14:06):
We were so excited that we wereable to buy thermometers so
that we could reopen the factorythe next day.
And I mean, we're high-fiving,and you would have thought we
would have just won a NobelPrize.
But it's those, and like, andby the way, that sticks in my
memory.
That moment of collective, likeuh a collective win.
It was a small win, but it wasfundamental, and it created a

(01:14:28):
cultural moment.
Like everyone wanted the samething.
Get our people back to work.
They want to be back to work,we want them back to work.
We're not going to be held upby a thermometer.

Well, I think that's a great way to wrap up
because it means that Rock HouseFamily Farm brands is in very
good hands.

Well, at least we have the ability to take a
temperature.
Yes.
Thank you so much for havingme.
Appreciate the delight.
Been a delight.
Thank you.

Thank you.

Voice Over (01:14:56):
iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW Group production in
association with the five-starand TW interiors.
To learn more about iDesign Labor TW Interiors, please visit
TWInteriors.com.

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