August 30, 2004
The personal touch | Furniture maker Bill Huston tries to balance attention to customers with the need for growth
By Sean Donahue
Students moving into Princeton University's new Ellipse Dormitory this month undoubtedly will be busy with the typical beginning-of-the-semester concerns, such as catching up with friends, figuring out class schedules and finding parties. So they can be excused if they don't notice the new, custom furniture installed in their dorm's student lounges and dining area ˆ a collection of Mission-style tables and chairs made by hand in the Kennebunkport shop of Huston & Company.
But what they gloss over is of paramount importance to Bill Huston, founder of and designer for the company that bears his name. The $100,000 contract, which includes 19 study and dining tables and 86 chairs, is his 16th job since 1997 at the Ivy League campus, where he's designed and built furniture for the Woolworth Music Library and offices including that of the university president. Yet the project is still especially important to Huston precisely because it is dormitory furniture ˆ and dorms are one of the new institutional niches Huston has been courting recently to expand on his company's design expertise and relationships with universities and community libraries, as well as architects and interior designers.
The expansion is necessary, Huston says, because he faces a dilemma. He says he's reached a perfect spot with his 16-year-old company, where he is still able to work directly with well-heeled customers to design custom residential furniture, but the company is large enough to supplement those jobs with institutional projects, which account for about half of his business. He's got a small, manageable, experienced staff ˆ two of his four furniture workers have been with him for 15 years ˆ and has no desire to oversee dozens of shopworkers and add a layer of designers and salespeople between him and his clients.
Still, he has to keep growing what is now an approximately $1 million business. "We can't stay at the same dollar [level] year after year, because the guys at the shop expect raises, electricity rates and other costs go up, so you have to keep growing," says Huston. "[That's] why institutional projects are important to us. Because they allow us to work more efficiently, they are more profitable for us and help to grow the bottom line."
But, of course, there is potential danger in growth. Huston's ability to create custom designs in collaboration with project architects, interior designers and even, in the case of the Princeton dorm, the major donor, is one of the company's biggest strengths, say clients. But as the company grows, Huston must be careful not to jeopardize that personal touch. "When you work with Bill Huston you know he's the one you're going to be talking to on the project," says Barbara Joslin, a principal with Best Joslin Architects in Windsor, Conn., who has used Huston & Company furniture in three library projects since 1999. "If he gets too big and loses that, he may not have the same strength he has now."
Norwegian wood
Born and raised in southern Ohio, Huston majored in art at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he explored everything from ceramics and printmaking to photography. He may have pursued one of those disciplines had he not signed up for an adult education woodworking class offered through a nearby high school. During that beginner level, six-week course he built what he now says is a "crude" table, but the experince was enough to show him that wood was his preferred medium.
Through Beloit, Huston heard about an exchange program called Scandinavian Seminar, which offered the chance to work with a master furniture craftsman in a town north of Oslo, Norway. In 1971, Huston signed up, and during two years there learned everything from how to use basic tools to the essence of traditional Scandinavian design. By the time he returned to the United States he knew he wanted to design and build his own furniture, and in 1976 signed up to work with Thomas Moser's fledgling furniture making operation in New Gloucester to further his skills.
Working with Moser helped Huston develop a similar focus on quality and attention to detail as the famous Maine woodworker. But as one of Moser's first employees, Huston watched the operation grow from just a few people to about 100 ˆ an experience that informed his own ideas about what he wanted out of his own company. "I always think of it now as an education in what it's like to be in a growing business," says Huston. "It allowed me to judge for myself which level felt right to me, and I learned that bigger wasn't necessarily better for me."
Huston left Thos. Moser in 1988 to found Huston & Company, specializing in his own Arts and Crafts-inspired pieces for the residential market. He spent the next six years developing signature designs like his $2,295 Baron Table, creating custom pieces for individual customers and taking on the occasional corporate job. One of those corporate jobs led the company to the library furniture market, when an architecture firm Huston had worked with previously called to ask if he could design furniture for its latest project, a renovation of the Warren Township Public Library in Warren, N.J.
Though Huston admits he got that first library job "through no efforts of our own," he was able to spin it into more than 20 subsequent library projects (see "Knock on wood," p. 15). In the process, Huston realized that those projects ˆ building tables, study carrels, shelf end panels and other handmade, durable pieces ˆ offered opportunities to work more efficiently. On an order for eight tables, for example, his shopworkers could make 32 legs at a time, rather than four. The time spent creating specialized jigs for shaping curved pieces could be amortized, so to speak, over multiple pieces. "We saw that not only did [library jobs] fit us in terms of doing custom work, it also gave us an opportunity to do mini-production, so from a business standpoint it made sense," says Huston, adding that such projects typically bring in $100,000 to $400,000 each.
Although the idea of public library patrons or college students abusing handmade desks and tables probably horrifies furniture aficionados, it's precisely that abuse that makes custom furniture necessary, say Huston & Company customers. Custom furniture that's made with hardwoods, sturdy joints and meticulous finishes offers durability that mass-produced, off-the-shelf furniture can't match, justifying its higher up-front cost by promising a much longer life.
"I absolutely say to other librarians going through a renovation or expansion, 'Make sure you get a very good furnishing budget so you can buy something really good that will last decades,'" says Carol Mahoney, director of the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, Mass., which in April purchased $260,000 worth of Huston furniture.
In exchange for quality work, says Mahoney, librarians offer an unparalleled source of word-of-mouth publicity and personal references, since they're tightly networked and frequently share information. Thanks to that network, Huston & Company has established a strong reputation in the educational and library market. "We've never gotten a call back with any issues on products that have been installed by Huston, and that means a lot," says Jane Lucas, a principal with Lucas Stefura Interiors in Boston who's used Huston furniture in three projects.
Getting the name out
Still, the library market is considered a tiny niche within the overall furniture market, worth about $35 million and only growing about 1.5% annually over the past few years, according to Oakville, Ontario-based furniture market analysis firm Aktrin. So to increase institutional projects to about 60% of his overall sales ˆ up from the 50% they represent now ˆ Huston plans to go after even more small niches, like furniture for dormitory lounges or college student centers.
One of his selling points is the ability to collaborate with the clients' architects or designers on custom designs, but also to offer samples that range from his own work to custom jobs created for other clients as a starting point. For example, Princeton wanted something similar to Huston's Baron Table, but with a slightly different base and different top, and made from red oak (rather than cherry) to echo other wood details in the dorm.
Huston also has proven its ability to meet tight deadlines, which are important for education projects that typically must be completed during the summer; Princeton gave Huston about three months to build and deliver its Ellipse furniture. Even though the process occupied two of his workers for three weeks, Huston was able to fit it in by shuffling some of his residential work.
The key to landing new jobs, Huston admits, is marketing ˆ something he says now takes up about half of his time. Though the company attends a few trade shows a year, Huston believes that frequent, informal contact with facilities planners, architects, designers and schools is more important to landing potential jobs. He tries to keep in touch with previous customers by phoning or mailing postcards and other updates at least every three months ˆ often more like once a month. "Anything to put our name in front of them again," he says.
Huston also just hired a new, part-time bookkeeper at his Kennebunkport showroom to free time for office manager Kate Mastrangelo to act as the company's marketing manager. Her job is to track down upcoming school or institutional projects that might be a good match for Huston & Company, find the designers' or facilities managers' names and make initial phone calls to ask about the job.
A creative outlet
The task is made slightly easier by the trend for college administrators and facilities planners to create more coherent, unified designs for their construction projects, using custom furniture to match other architectural or design elements ˆ even in utilitarian spaces like dormitories. "Generally, higher education years ago lagged in terms of the quality of interior space, with the exception of a few types of buildings," says Joe Rizzo, an architect who specializes in educational projects with The Hillier Group in Washington, D.C. "These days, people are expecting more, and schools are competing more. You can't put custom furniture everywhere, but in lounges or major lobby areas, that could be a case where custom furniture makes a difference."
At the same time, Huston hopes the Princeton dorm project will help him show previous library or corporate clients how his company can handle additional specialized projects. "With the nature of work today, [the key] is being able to demonstrate and have photographs of things you've doneˆ that there are other projects you've worked on," says Amy Hartzell, a project manager with Princeton's Office of Physical Planning who has worked with Huston on several projects, including the Ellipse Dormitory job, since 1997.
Not every custom furniture maker sees the same value as Huston does in these potential jobs, though. Aaron Moser, who runs Thos. Moser's library and institutional sales, says that in his experience, requests for custom furniture in dorms or other common spaces is so small as to not even qualify as a niche. Instead, Moser continues to focus on larger library projects, which he says are still a strong market.
But in Huston's quest for incremental growth, he believes the occasional new dormitory or other niche institutional project ˆ among two or three library or corporate jobs he'd like to do each year ˆ would provide an ample kick to his company's revenues. More importantly, at that level, those jobs wouldn't threaten the balance he says he's struck between his roles as craftsman and a businessman.
Though Huston now only spends about 20% of his time building furniture, and then just handling small, simple jobs, developing custom designs provides a creative outlet he doesn't want to give up. He also wants to retain enough time to continue developing his own new furniture designs, some of which could turn out to be the models for a future corporate or university project. All the more reason, he says, to try to hang on to the company he's built, even as he looks for new markets. "That's what keeps it interesting [for me] and that's what keeps it interesting for the guys in the shopˆ We're always doing a new piece," says Huston. "That's what we all like about being a small, custom shop."
But what they gloss over is of paramount importance to Bill Huston, founder of and designer for the company that bears his name. The $100,000 contract, which includes 19 study and dining tables and 86 chairs, is his 16th job since 1997 at the Ivy League campus, where he's designed and built furniture for the Woolworth Music Library and offices including that of the university president. Yet the project is still especially important to Huston precisely because it is dormitory furniture ˆ and dorms are one of the new institutional niches Huston has been courting recently to expand on his company's design expertise and relationships with universities and community libraries, as well as architects and interior designers.
The expansion is necessary, Huston says, because he faces a dilemma. He says he's reached a perfect spot with his 16-year-old company, where he is still able to work directly with well-heeled customers to design custom residential furniture, but the company is large enough to supplement those jobs with institutional projects, which account for about half of his business. He's got a small, manageable, experienced staff ˆ two of his four furniture workers have been with him for 15 years ˆ and has no desire to oversee dozens of shopworkers and add a layer of designers and salespeople between him and his clients.
Still, he has to keep growing what is now an approximately $1 million business. "We can't stay at the same dollar [level] year after year, because the guys at the shop expect raises, electricity rates and other costs go up, so you have to keep growing," says Huston. "[That's] why institutional projects are important to us. Because they allow us to work more efficiently, they are more profitable for us and help to grow the bottom line."
But, of course, there is potential danger in growth. Huston's ability to create custom designs in collaboration with project architects, interior designers and even, in the case of the Princeton dorm, the major donor, is one of the company's biggest strengths, say clients. But as the company grows, Huston must be careful not to jeopardize that personal touch. "When you work with Bill Huston you know he's the one you're going to be talking to on the project," says Barbara Joslin, a principal with Best Joslin Architects in Windsor, Conn., who has used Huston & Company furniture in three library projects since 1999. "If he gets too big and loses that, he may not have the same strength he has now."
Norwegian wood
Born and raised in southern Ohio, Huston majored in art at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he explored everything from ceramics and printmaking to photography. He may have pursued one of those disciplines had he not signed up for an adult education woodworking class offered through a nearby high school. During that beginner level, six-week course he built what he now says is a "crude" table, but the experince was enough to show him that wood was his preferred medium.
Through Beloit, Huston heard about an exchange program called Scandinavian Seminar, which offered the chance to work with a master furniture craftsman in a town north of Oslo, Norway. In 1971, Huston signed up, and during two years there learned everything from how to use basic tools to the essence of traditional Scandinavian design. By the time he returned to the United States he knew he wanted to design and build his own furniture, and in 1976 signed up to work with Thomas Moser's fledgling furniture making operation in New Gloucester to further his skills.
Working with Moser helped Huston develop a similar focus on quality and attention to detail as the famous Maine woodworker. But as one of Moser's first employees, Huston watched the operation grow from just a few people to about 100 ˆ an experience that informed his own ideas about what he wanted out of his own company. "I always think of it now as an education in what it's like to be in a growing business," says Huston. "It allowed me to judge for myself which level felt right to me, and I learned that bigger wasn't necessarily better for me."
Huston left Thos. Moser in 1988 to found Huston & Company, specializing in his own Arts and Crafts-inspired pieces for the residential market. He spent the next six years developing signature designs like his $2,295 Baron Table, creating custom pieces for individual customers and taking on the occasional corporate job. One of those corporate jobs led the company to the library furniture market, when an architecture firm Huston had worked with previously called to ask if he could design furniture for its latest project, a renovation of the Warren Township Public Library in Warren, N.J.
Though Huston admits he got that first library job "through no efforts of our own," he was able to spin it into more than 20 subsequent library projects (see "Knock on wood," p. 15). In the process, Huston realized that those projects ˆ building tables, study carrels, shelf end panels and other handmade, durable pieces ˆ offered opportunities to work more efficiently. On an order for eight tables, for example, his shopworkers could make 32 legs at a time, rather than four. The time spent creating specialized jigs for shaping curved pieces could be amortized, so to speak, over multiple pieces. "We saw that not only did [library jobs] fit us in terms of doing custom work, it also gave us an opportunity to do mini-production, so from a business standpoint it made sense," says Huston, adding that such projects typically bring in $100,000 to $400,000 each.
Although the idea of public library patrons or college students abusing handmade desks and tables probably horrifies furniture aficionados, it's precisely that abuse that makes custom furniture necessary, say Huston & Company customers. Custom furniture that's made with hardwoods, sturdy joints and meticulous finishes offers durability that mass-produced, off-the-shelf furniture can't match, justifying its higher up-front cost by promising a much longer life.
"I absolutely say to other librarians going through a renovation or expansion, 'Make sure you get a very good furnishing budget so you can buy something really good that will last decades,'" says Carol Mahoney, director of the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, Mass., which in April purchased $260,000 worth of Huston furniture.
In exchange for quality work, says Mahoney, librarians offer an unparalleled source of word-of-mouth publicity and personal references, since they're tightly networked and frequently share information. Thanks to that network, Huston & Company has established a strong reputation in the educational and library market. "We've never gotten a call back with any issues on products that have been installed by Huston, and that means a lot," says Jane Lucas, a principal with Lucas Stefura Interiors in Boston who's used Huston furniture in three projects.
Getting the name out
Still, the library market is considered a tiny niche within the overall furniture market, worth about $35 million and only growing about 1.5% annually over the past few years, according to Oakville, Ontario-based furniture market analysis firm Aktrin. So to increase institutional projects to about 60% of his overall sales ˆ up from the 50% they represent now ˆ Huston plans to go after even more small niches, like furniture for dormitory lounges or college student centers.
One of his selling points is the ability to collaborate with the clients' architects or designers on custom designs, but also to offer samples that range from his own work to custom jobs created for other clients as a starting point. For example, Princeton wanted something similar to Huston's Baron Table, but with a slightly different base and different top, and made from red oak (rather than cherry) to echo other wood details in the dorm.
Huston also has proven its ability to meet tight deadlines, which are important for education projects that typically must be completed during the summer; Princeton gave Huston about three months to build and deliver its Ellipse furniture. Even though the process occupied two of his workers for three weeks, Huston was able to fit it in by shuffling some of his residential work.
The key to landing new jobs, Huston admits, is marketing ˆ something he says now takes up about half of his time. Though the company attends a few trade shows a year, Huston believes that frequent, informal contact with facilities planners, architects, designers and schools is more important to landing potential jobs. He tries to keep in touch with previous customers by phoning or mailing postcards and other updates at least every three months ˆ often more like once a month. "Anything to put our name in front of them again," he says.
Huston also just hired a new, part-time bookkeeper at his Kennebunkport showroom to free time for office manager Kate Mastrangelo to act as the company's marketing manager. Her job is to track down upcoming school or institutional projects that might be a good match for Huston & Company, find the designers' or facilities managers' names and make initial phone calls to ask about the job.
A creative outlet
The task is made slightly easier by the trend for college administrators and facilities planners to create more coherent, unified designs for their construction projects, using custom furniture to match other architectural or design elements ˆ even in utilitarian spaces like dormitories. "Generally, higher education years ago lagged in terms of the quality of interior space, with the exception of a few types of buildings," says Joe Rizzo, an architect who specializes in educational projects with The Hillier Group in Washington, D.C. "These days, people are expecting more, and schools are competing more. You can't put custom furniture everywhere, but in lounges or major lobby areas, that could be a case where custom furniture makes a difference."
At the same time, Huston hopes the Princeton dorm project will help him show previous library or corporate clients how his company can handle additional specialized projects. "With the nature of work today, [the key] is being able to demonstrate and have photographs of things you've doneˆ that there are other projects you've worked on," says Amy Hartzell, a project manager with Princeton's Office of Physical Planning who has worked with Huston on several projects, including the Ellipse Dormitory job, since 1997.
Not every custom furniture maker sees the same value as Huston does in these potential jobs, though. Aaron Moser, who runs Thos. Moser's library and institutional sales, says that in his experience, requests for custom furniture in dorms or other common spaces is so small as to not even qualify as a niche. Instead, Moser continues to focus on larger library projects, which he says are still a strong market.
But in Huston's quest for incremental growth, he believes the occasional new dormitory or other niche institutional project ˆ among two or three library or corporate jobs he'd like to do each year ˆ would provide an ample kick to his company's revenues. More importantly, at that level, those jobs wouldn't threaten the balance he says he's struck between his roles as craftsman and a businessman.
Though Huston now only spends about 20% of his time building furniture, and then just handling small, simple jobs, developing custom designs provides a creative outlet he doesn't want to give up. He also wants to retain enough time to continue developing his own new furniture designs, some of which could turn out to be the models for a future corporate or university project. All the more reason, he says, to try to hang on to the company he's built, even as he looks for new markets. "That's what keeps it interesting [for me] and that's what keeps it interesting for the guys in the shopˆ We're always doing a new piece," says Huston. "That's what we all like about being a small, custom shop."
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