Tom Seely has craft-y way of competing with imports
By Jeff Linville -- Furniture Today, October 14, 2001
BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. — Competing with imports means differentiating one's product. For Tom Seely Furniture here in the northeast corner of West Virginia, that means hands-on, high-end production.
Tom Seely Furniture is hand-built by craftsmen out of solid sugar pine, oak or cherry. The company believes in straight lines and open surfaces that show the wood's grace and warmth.
"We feel strongly that consumers have tired of over-designed, over-promised living," said Gat Caperton, president and chief executive officer. "We believe that beauty, style and sophistication are often best defined by simplicity."
This approach has taken the company from $10 million a year in annual sales five years ago when Caperton took over to $13 million today. It sells to 300 independent retailers, mostly in the East, with about 30% of the business in Virginia.
Tom Seely doesn't use particleboard or veneers and has moved away from nails to old-fashioned joinery and some wood screws. Shiplapping, a traditional technique of overlapping boards, allows wood to expand and contract. Rather than attach a turned foot to a dresser, the foot is part of a solid piece that runs down the edge of the case.
"Construction elements like wood-pegged mortise-and-tenon joints are left unhidden," said Caperton. "Unlike the Arts and Crafts movement, these elements are not exaggerated but are left to blend quietly."
"No one is necessarily safe from imports," he said, but because of the line's quality and price points, it doesn't compete directly with imports. The Halsted sleigh bed in queen size retails at roughly $2,499 to $2,599. The Vineyard double armoire retails for around $3,999. A featured home office piece is the Gramercy writing desk with extendable writing surface for $1,999.
Most items are available in 13 finish options. Its latest line, Gat Creek, is in cherry.
Tom Seely founded the furniture company after his return from World War II. He spent nearly a decade collecting and reselling antiques, but found a limited supply of pieces in country style. By the mid-1960s, Seely was making precise reproductions of the pieces he considered the most gracefully designed.
As he grew older and his clientele grew larger, Seely realized he couldn't keep up with production. Luckily he found plenty of skilled workers in the area. Some went to work at a factory, while others became freelance producers from their homes. These days, Caperton said the company employs 140 to 170 at the factory and uses dozens of outside contractors.
Seely, now 85, remained involved with the company after selling the business in 1996, keeping an office at the plant until this year and smoothing the transition to new ownership.
Much of the machinery in the factory is decades old, but Caperton is slowly modernizing. Half of the dovetail joints still are done by hand, he said.
"Building solid wood furniture simply doesn't lend itself to automation," he said. "Wood is a living thing. Every board is unique and possesses its own quirks.… Therefore, our furniture is built one individually cut board at a time, utilizing traditional woodworking techniques. This process assures not only a sturdy and attractive final product, it gives personality to each piece of furniture."
Workers sign their names to every completed piece and keep track of their work. One table maker with 15 years at the company, for example, recently finished work on his 21,283rd table; he completes six to eight a day. Another who makes case frames has more than 24,000 to his credit.
Twenty-eight years ago, Seely approached a Mennonite neighbor for help in making furniture. Today, the company has more than 20 contracts with Mennonite and Amish craftsmen in Pennsylvania and Ohio. These contractors often employ family and friends, providing work for dozens of people.
Communicating and coordinating work can be difficult because most don't have a telephone, car or computer. Many younger men in the communities, however, have adopted modern conveniences like electricity and power tools.
James Becker is one of those accepting new technology. Although a Mennonite, he has a car and a powered workshop. He has been building furniture for 14 years, focusing mostly on three cottage-styled pieces. Right now, he is making a cottage dresser and chest as well as a new trunk coffee table and telephone stand. Like the other workers, he is paid by the piece.
Becker started out with a few basic Sears power tools and the help of his sons. Over the years, he has added some larger equipment.
Dennis Umruh, who has worked with Tom Seely for 15 years, has a computer to help organize his work and others'. A Tom Seely truck delivers lumber to the home on Mondays, then comes back on Wednesdays to pick up unfinished, assembled goods. His wife, Lois, combs through the wood, sorting out complementary wood grains.
After Dennis has assembled the pieces, Lois and their oldest son do much of the sanding. Tom Seely offers incentives when workers get the work done on time and for meeting strict quality expectations, said Umruh. Because he believes in quality first, he refuses to rush and sometimes subcontracts work to friends when pressed for time.
Another contract worker, Lloyd Martin, learned about furniture as a teenager. He spent five years assembling chests from kits before joining Tom Seely in April 1998, focusing mainly on armoires and utility chests. In his spare time, Martin is constructing a building for his horse and buggy.
After years of working in his father's shop, he moved last December to his own shop. The new shop has a heating system with a furnace that burns wood shavings and heats water, which is circulated through pipes running through the concrete floor.
Once the pieces are constructed, all the furniture is finished to order in the plant here using linseed oil-based stains Seely developed from century-old recipes. The stains are meant to bring out the character of the wood instead of simply covering it, said Caperton. After that, the pieces are wrapped in blankets and shipped to dealers across the country.
| Sign on the West Virginia plant. |
| Grady Jones, left, Dayton Interiors, Harrisburg, Va., with Gat Caperton, Tom Seely Furniture, and Bill Florence, Dayton Interiors, at Tom Seely Furniture's recent homecoming for reps and dealers in Berkeley Springs, W.Va. |
| Maria Purpura, left, of Grandfather's Oak Furniture, Nellysford, Va., accepts a signed book from sales trainer Fred Berns, a guest speaker at the Tom Seely event. |
| Supervisor Gary Weller touches up an unfinished Virginia server at the Tom Seely Furniture factory. |
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