New Homestead House store right at home in Texas

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 4, 2012

Linda and Chris Pfeiffer are partners in the new Homestead House in Conroe, Texas, appealing to affluent consumers north of Houston.

Lexington Home Brands’ Old World European Palos Verdes collection is right at home against the reclaimed brick walls near the entrance on the new Homestead House store.

The 12,000-square-foot Homestead House in Conroe, Texas, showcases Stanley’s European Farmhouse bedroom in a blond finish.

CONROE, Texas — Chris Pfeiffer, once a manager at the former Homestead House in Colorado, has resurrected the name for a new high-end furniture store in this city north of Houston.

Pfeiffer and his wife, Linda, have leased the former Southwestern Furniture location on North Pacific Street for the new 12,000-square-foot showroom, featuring Flexsteel as a starting price point line and climbing up the price spectrum from there with lines such as Cresent, Lexington Home Brands, Sligh, Stanley, Henredon, Hancock & Moore, Taylor King and Kingsdown and Restonic in bedding.

The store opened Feb. 1 and has been well received, said Chris Pfeiffer, who most recently was a manager at Louis Shanks of Texas before that Top 100 company consolidated its Houston-area operations down to one store.

"When Shanks left the FM 1960 (store in the market this year) that left all of north Houston with really no mid to high-end presence," Pfeiffer said. He added that Shanks' closest store is about 50 to 60 miles south of Conroe, while Star Furniture, another upscale Texas player, has a store about 20 miles to the south.

"All the growth in Houston is in The Woodlands (area) north," he said. "We're kind of in the middle of the expansion."

Pfeiffer wouldn't disclose the startup investment, but said he is projecting the store will do between $2 million and $3 million in annual sales.

"I don't know if we'll get there the first year, but we think the marketplace can handle that," he said.
An industry veteran with more than 30 years of experience, Pfeiffer got his start out of college working for American Furniture Warehouse in greater Denver. From there he jumped to the high end, working for Homestead House as a regional sales manager before joining Shanks.

Pfeiffer said the character of the building he is leasing is fitting for the Homestead House name. The now retired owners of the former Southwestern Furniture used brick from a torn-down historic Conroe hotel in building the store, giving the space a warm, residential feel.

The new Homestead House starts where the Southwestern topped out. Fabric sofas, for instance, start at about $1,500 for Flexsteel and now top out at about $5,000 with Henredon. Leather sofas start at about $1,800 and go to $8,700.

In bedroom, Homestead House starts with Cresent with a solid maple and cherry queen master bedroom group for about $3,000 and goes up to about $10,000 for a Henredon king group.

Pfeiffer is using about 1,500 square feet of attached warehouse space and an additional 3,000-square-foot off-site warehouse to stock inventory.

"We've had a great response to our presence up here," Pfeiffer said. "So many people have said that they needed a better-end store up in this area. The response has been very positive and we're excited about that."