Ninety-year-old furniture seller and designer von Hemert Interiors Inc. long has been known for its opulent selection of furniture from all over the world.
Newport Beach-based von Hemert has designed and furnished the insides of many homes in Newport Coast, as well as upscale homes across the globe.
“We have branded ourselves as the high-end guy in OC,” said Mickey von Hemert, who owns the company with sisters Carrie von Hemert, vice president and head of marketing, and Kelly von Hemert, chief financial officer.
“We have a great relationship with the community in the high-end realm,” he said.
But the upscale furniture business isn’t what it used to be after the prolonged recession and slow recovery, which has made even the wealthy conscious about extravagant spending and driven wannabes out of the market.
So von Hemert has broadened its offerings with a line of mid-priced furniture designed to appeal to a wider range of people.
The line, from Manlius, N.Y.-based L. & J.G. Stickley Inc., now takes up 4,000 square feet of von Hemert’s 30,000-square-foot Costa Mesa showroom.
The homey wood furniture is in contrast to the rest of the store, which has eclectic pieces from all over the world.
“It’s really bringing in a customer that we’ve never attracted before,” Mickey von Hemert said.
Even so, business isn’t likely to return to what it was four years ago, he said.
“Because it was crazy” back then, Mickey von Hemert said. “Most of my business was based off of equity lines.”
These days, people are paying off debts, not buying furniture, he said.
“This has been pretty stinging for most people,” Mickey von Hemert said.
It might take a decade for the market to return to what it once was, he said.
In 2009, sales at home furniture stores nationally declined nearly 16% from 2008, on top of a 6% decline in 2008 and a 1% drop in 2007, according to Raleigh, N.C.-based Sageworks Inc.
As with the housing market, industry watchers don’t anticipate a quick rebound.
Furniture sales are expected to recover slowly through 2015 as stores continue to close and big chains acquire more small stores, according to IbisWorld Inc., a Los Angeles-based market research company.
Industry
The industry is dominated by individually owned stores and small chains, without a single retailer making up more than 5% of the market share, according to IBIS.
Europe’s Inter IKEA Systems BV, with $2.4 billion in yearly sales, has one of the largest chunks of the market at just shy of 5%.
Others with smaller market shares include Seffner, Fla.-based Rooms to Go Inc., Danbury, Conn.-based Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. and Arcadia, Wis.-based Ashley Furniture Industries Inc.
Home remodeling and sales of individual pieces are likely to drive whatever growth there is in the next few years.
Luxury retailers, such as von Hemert, are expected to be better off.
The company plans on sticking around, according to Mickey von Hemert.
As furniture stores closed amid the thick of the downturn, von Hemert’s three stores still are standing. Its Laguna Beach store recently underwent remodeling. Its third store is in Torrance.
Von Hemert has $8 million in yearly sales and 28 employees, including interior designers who have been with the company for years.
The “newest” employee has been there for nine years.
Against long odds, von Hemert has achieved fourth-generation family ownership. Fewer than 3% of family businesses make it to a fourth generation.
Mickey von Hemert’s great grandmother, Anna von Hemert, who came from Holland, started the business in Los Angeles in the 1920s with her husband Fred Martin.
Theodore von Hemert—Anna’s son and Mickey’s grandfather—joined the company shortly after.
Theodore designed movie sets in the 1940s and also was a competitive water polo player. Barry von Hemert— Theodore’s son and Mickey’s father—joined the family business in the 1970s.
Barry von Hemert, who serves as chairman, retired from day-to-day operations about 12 years ago.
“My father is a wealth of information,” Mickey von Hemert said. “My dad’s given me a real gift to dissect a piece of furniture.”
Father and son worked on the redesign of von Hemert’s 4,000-square-foot Laguna Beach store with local architect Robert A. McGraw.
“When business is slow—that is the time to remodel and get yourself ready for when it comes back,” Mickey von Hemert said.
The remodeling cost 16 times what it cost to buy the store’s building years ago, he said.
Buying buildings early on has helped the company thrive, according to Mickey von Hemert.
“We’re very fortunate,” he said. “My father and grandfather made good property acquisitions. They bought all three of our stores and were very conservative in running their own personal and business lives.”
His father owns most of the property, and Mickey von Hemert and his sisters own the majority of the company.
If the von Hemerts had to go out and lease a building, “It would be very hard because there’s too much square footage for return on investment,” Mickey von Hemert said. “You’d have to do a lot of business to pay rent.”
More than half of its business is selling furniture right off the sales floor, where Mickey von Hemert keeps his office.
“I literally have a desk on the floor,” he said. “I want to hear what the customer is asking for.”
The other part of the business is project work—designing rooms, a house or multiple houses.
Mickey von Hemert said he always wanted to be in the business. He started working at the Laguna Beach store at age 19, six months before his grandfather passed away.
He wasn’t groomed to take over. His father just made the business look fun, Mickey von Hemert said.
“Because he was smart, my dad took us to the fun things,” he said, such as furniture buying shows in San Francisco and other cities.
Buying Trips
Mickey Von Hemert still goes on buying trips. He buys unique and artisan-crafted furniture from Europe, Vietnam and North Carolina, among other places.
“I’m one of the last guys still importing from Italy,” he said. “This is not a commodity store. This is a real onesy-twosy store. Our vision is we’re going to have the antiques of the future.”
It’s been a tough couple of years, but the family is preparing for brisker business, according to Mickey von Hemert.
“As things have gotten slower for us, our game has gone up,” he said.
The downturn has helped improve the business and his working relationship with his sisters, Mickey von Hemert said. They each stick to their specific roles, based on their strengths.
“We have been working much tighter,” he said. “We’re focused on running a business and keeping our employees.”
