Ambrose keeps Outer Banks furnished

By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, November 14, 2004

Kitty Hawk, N.C. — Sun, sand and surf. These are the three qualities that people associate most with coastal living.

But furniture also is a big part of that picture.

Just ask Barry Ambrose, whose family runs Ambrose Furniture in Kitty Hawk on North Carolina's Outer Banks.

The store is part of a three-unit chain the family first established in Elizabeth City in 1946. The company added the Kitty Hawk store in 1984 and, in 1988, its largest store at 15,000 square feet in Coinjock.

But Kitty Hawk is by far the most successful from a sales standpoint, which contributed to it being named the Outer Bank Business of the Year this year. As of June, sales were up 12% over last year. In the past five years, they have doubled, Ambrose said.

Located in the heart of this picturesque beach home area, the store does about 70% of the company's volume, thanks in no small part to the seasonal traffic.

"It's just location, location, location," Barry Ambrose said. "This whole area has just boomed."

And it's still growing. Between April 2000 and July 2002, the number of housing units in Dare County rose 6.8% to 24,484, exceeding the 5.2% growth rate for the state overall during the same period. Just north in Currituck County, the number of housing units rose 7.4% during that period, to 11,479, also exceeding the state growth rate.

In dollars, there was an estimated $384.7 million in building activity in Dare in 2002, up from $270.2 million in 2001.

"I think all of northeastern North Carolina is getting ready to explode," Ambrose said. "So many people are discovering it as a retirement location. There's good golf, good access to the water, all that stuff."

Second-home boom

Some of that growth represents the still-booming second home market. Many of these properties are seasonal rentals for people who visit the Outer Banks from all over the country. Some houses are relatively small, with four or five bedrooms. Others are mansions with 16 bedrooms.

Whether these are rentals or primary or second homes, they all have one thing in common — the need for furniture.

Ambrose Furniture has tried to cater to this demand by offering a mix of styles that appeal to higher-end customers.

Its case goods mix includes well-known brands such as Drexel Heritage, Lexington, Stanley and Kincaid.

On the upholstery side, key vendors include La-Z-Boy, Rowe and Broyhill.

"I think we are really trying to lead the market out here in terms of trends," Ambrose said.

At the same time, the company tries to maintain a unique flair on its sales floors. Its casual look and feel is well represented by a mix of colorful fabrics and accessories.

In other words, if you're mostly in the market for plain tan or taupe fabrics, don't expect to find many of those at Ambrose.

"Because it's coastal, people want more color," Ambrose said. "They want a brighter, cheerier look."

Still, its look isn't overly casual. For example, there isn't an overabundance of wicker and rattan.

Ambrose described the product mix as an eclectic brand of casual elegance marked by many traditional styles. Many floor samples have more of a cottage than a tropical look and feel.

That apparently appeals to people visiting the store during the booming summer months, when the population rises from 29,000 to 225,000 in Dare County alone. In Currituck, it rises from about 18,000 to more than 60,000.

In many cases, some of these visitors buy items right off the floor, which allows the store to constantly change its mix. Others ask Ambrose if he'll consider putting a store in their home state.

Such out-of-state expansion is not on the drawing board. The Kitty Hawk store and the two sister locations are doing well enough on their own.

Seasonal challenges

Still, none of this implies Kitty Hawk does a booming business year round.

It gets some local traffic between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But for the most part, mid-October through Christmas can be pretty dismal as most of the heavy shore traffic dwindles.

But after Christmas, business begins to pick up dramatically. January through May is the company's busiest time, even though the summer beach traffic hasn't yet started.

That's because that period is when rental homeowners need to get their properties ready for summer. That largely means replacing worn furniture so homes look their best.

"This business has evolved so much that you have these multi-million-dollar mansions and you have folks from all over the country — 10,000 to 20,000 a week — who rent," said Art Thibodeau, owner of Carolina Designs Realty in Duck. "What's on the floor — the furnishings — and the walls are the first things they see. They have high expectations."

In that regard, he said, Ambrose does a terrific job of helping homeowners make properties look their best.

"They are gracious, and they have great taste, and it is reflected in the fact that the majority of these homes have been furnished from top to bottom," he said.

"It is their tastes that have helped define these homes. They have to look at least as good from the inside as they do on the outside."

Ambrose Furniture opened the Kitty Hawk location 20 years ago in anticipation of an emerging market for beach house furniture, said Marion Ambrose, whose father, H.H., founded the company.

"The business was doing good with the one store," he said. "We got in ahead of this boom down here and decided we wanted to go to the Outer Banks."

The store started out specializing in rockers by Troutman Chair. As the summer traffic increased, it expanded its product line and began helping customers with interior design. Marion's wife, Betty, specialized in design, a factor that ultimately helped expand the business.

"We are very well positioned," Ambrose said. "With my wife's ambitions and talents, it really started turning around."

The store did so well in fact, that the company expanded it from its original 3,000 square feet to about 9,000 in 1994.

That investment has more than paid off. While some of the new home business has tapered off, Ambrose is still furnishing plenty of existing beach houses. Last year, it delivered furniture for 104 homes, down slightly from 119 the year before and 143 in 2001.

For the first six months of this year, it delivered furniture to 66 homes, about 12 over where it was last year at the same time.

"We do the whole house, but that is changing," Barry Ambrose said. "As land is dwindling away, we are phasing into more of a redo mode. It is not as big a delivery, but we are finding people are spending more on the room because they are not doing so much at one time."

For instance, one customer recently spent $25,000 on a living and dining room. By comparison, a whole house could be furnished for $35,000.

Tailoring the product

That's not to say the business doesn't have challenges.

Along with growing competition, it's still difficult to shop for product for three different stores.

The Elizabeth City store features a more traditional look, while the Coinjock store is a combination of the Kitty Hawk and Elizabeth City assortments.

In 2003, the company also closed a fourth location in Corolla, a small town on the northern Outer Banks that opened in 1985. The population there during the off season wasn't sufficient to support it.

Fortunately, there hasn't been any noticeable drop in sales from that store closing. Without revealing specific figures, Ambrose said his other units have simply picked up business, especially as they have updated their own floor presentations.

"When we put more color and life into the Elizabeth City store sales improved," Barry Ambrose said. "Taking that attitude into the other locations has improved sales."

More than anything, Ambrose attributes the small chain's success to customer service and the combined efforts of its 33 employees.

"It's important to do what you say you are going to do," he said. "It's surprising to me to hear how often people don't. Not that we don't drop the ball sometimes, but we are going to try to move heaven and earth to do it."