Homemakers' Disneyland touch
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, February 27, 2006
Santa Clarita, Calif. — Homemakers Furniture opened a 100,000-square-foot store here bent on creating a Disneyland feel with Hollywood props and other special touches for shoppers.
The store also features an expanded assortment of promotional to upscale furniture, including many new suppliers.
Homemakers' experience-oriented displays are in the tradition of those that have helped propel the businesses of Top 100 companies such as Gallery Furniture, El Dorado Furniture and Berkshire Hathaway's Jordan's Furniture.
Visitors entering the store move past a fountain, where they can drop coins to make wishes, and to benefit the Michael Hoefflin Foundation and its mission to end childhood cancer. From there, they can walk toward a 30-foot stone fireplace with an animated mounted moose head that chats with a nearby eagle.
A log cabin, complete with a front porch and a fireplace, houses the store's rustic lodge looks. A Midwestern-style barn is home to collections of country and western looks, as well as a covered wagon from the movie "City Slickers."
Because Homemakers is in a part of the county were some three-quarters of the homes feature Spanish architecture, the retailer has a hacienda area with large, heavy dining tables and other Spanish-flavored goods from suppliers including Antigua Imports, Pacer Furniture, Ploi, Key City and Stanley.
Visitors also can stroll by a European bistro with formal and casual dining offerings, or walk through a tree house to see youth bedroom.
"This is something we've been talking about for the last 10 years," said Julie Hoffman, co-owner of the two-store business with her husband, Tim Wickman, who started it 28 years ago. "My husband always wanted a destination furniture store."
She said the elaborate displays help make shopping fun.
"We want people to wake up in the morning and say, 'We've got to go to Homemakers today to see what's new,'" she said. "Tim and I wanted to have a store where everyone could shop and where everyone could get the look they dream about, so now we have the room to show every style and every price."
Hoffman wouldn't disclose the investment or projected sales, but said initial response from consumers has been overwhelming. On opening day late in December, some 1,500 people came through the doors and a charity raffle raised $12,000 for the Hoefflin foundation.
Homemakers was listed in Furniture/Today's Beyond the Top 100 report with estimated 2004 sales of $14 million.
In a sense, the new store replaces three other Homemakers locations, including a warehouse outlet and Tim Wickman's original 30,000-square-foot store in Santa Clarita. The latter was converted to The Furniture Store, a new division for Homemakers with a no-frills concept emphasizing closeouts and other specials at promotional prices.
With the added space, Homemakers added a number of vendors, including Shermag, Lee Inds., Taylor King, Brownstone, Tempo, Old Hickory Tannery, Tempur-Pedic, Can-adel, Berkline, Intercon and Stanley.
It also expanded its offering from Broyhill, RC Furniture, Pastel, Universal, Flexsteel, Armen Art, Stanton International, GuildCraft of California and Robert Michael.
Other key suppliers include Spring Air, Diamond Mattress, AICO, Ashley/Millennium, Zocalo, Dakota and Powell.
The store features galleries of bedroom furniture, leather, lifestyle looks and style themes such as country French, Shabby Chic, urban loft, Spanish, traditional and transitional. Colorful murals by California artists add life to the various "stages," such as the barn and the hacienda.
Home theater product is displayed in an old-time theater setting with big-screen Mitsubishi televisions (for sale) and a variety of seating options, including zero-gravity massage chairs from Interactive Health and Berkline chairs that include a ButtKicker device that enables users to feel the bass sounds coming from their home theater systems. "People love them," Hoffman said.
And there's more coming. In March or early April, Homemakers will install part of a Continental jet fuselage in the showroom to display its recliner offering from suppliers Barcalounger, Jonathan Louis, Flexsteel and possibly Berkline. The entrance will be designed to look like an airport ticket counter.
Talkback
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Homemakers Furniture, Santa Clarita, CA. Going, going, almost gone. The Disney Land approach...
Jason Adams - 2008-08-28 11:13:50 -
HomeMakers Furniture Santa Clarita, CA quitting business again. It was only 7 months ago they...
Yorker Michael - 2008-08-25 10:07:45
