American buys Homestead House stores in Colorado
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, July 4, 2005
Denver — American Furniture Warehouse has acquired the three Homestead House stores in Colorado for $16.85 million, according to a newspaper report.
On its Web site, the Denver Post said last week that government records show that American bought the Homestead House stores in Westminster, Centennial and Fort Collins, Colo. The latter is a Touchstone Design Studio & Furniture showroom, a Homestead House brand.
The newspaper also said American submitted paperwork to do business at the Westminster and Fort Collins stores.
American has its own midpriced showrooms near all three of the acquired upscale Homestead House stores.
Homestead House CEO David Smith and American Furniture Warehouse President Jake Jabs could not be reached for comment.
In April, American's director of communications, Christine Herbert, confirmed the nine-store retailer was in discussions for the Homestead House stores, but said no deal had been reached. She would not comment on the acquisition report last week.
Homestead House, which operates five other stores in California and Texas, has been scaling back operations for years. Furniture/Today estimates its 2004 sales declined more than 11% from the year before to $71 million.
American, meanwhile, increased its furniture, bedding and accessory sales 2% last year to $310 million, making it No. 27 on Furniture/Today's survey of Top 100 U.S. Furniture Stores.
It has said it plans to build two 530,000-squre-foot warehouse showroom mega-centers, the first in Firestone, Colo., this year and another in Colorado Springs in 2006.
The Post reported that Homestead House has advertised liquidation sales for several weeks. In January, it sent circulars to Colorado residents with "The boss is retiring" as the promotion theme, featuring a photo of CEO Smith.
Smith's son Jay Smith, head of the Touchstone wholesale division, has said that business is operated as a separate entity from Homestead House and the Touchstone store, and will continue to operate separately with a growing list of its own retail accounts.
