The "New" Hekman Furniture Company

Last week, we sat down with Tim DeLauder, manufacturer's rep for Hekman Furniture, to preview the new lines and go over the offerings for Las Vegas Furniture show coming up in July. Mike had searched the Hekman web site for dealers in the state of Oregon and besides Landfair Furniture, which wasn't listed (and Tim says that will soon be corrected), we found only Kuhnhausen's in the Portland area. We seem to be selling more and more Hekman and Mike asked what has changed with the company.

Seems Hekman was very much an East Coast company in the past, meaning it's styles primarily appealed to that section of the country, and also it was known mostly as a desk company. About 2 1/2 years ago, new management came in and the company has become broader and more hip. Quality and design are now equal to Drexal Heritage.

Recently two collections, Metropolis

and Repertory

have been strong on major cities. Repertory even won the first annual Advancing Design and Innovation Award (ADI).

(Repertory) is a collection of 18 pieces inspired bu the Neoclassical and Empire styles. Using the classic forms of this period as a foundation, pieces are wrapped in leafy heart cherry veneers with rich walnut burl borders and treated to satiny silver hardware.

Now Hekman has introduced the Castillian collection:

The Castillian collection is oversized and lightly distressed featuring a finish that is soft and slightly tobacco colored. It is perfect for large rooms.

Another feature of the Hekman line are two new kinds of desks: Laptop Desks, built especially for laptops and the gear needed for laptops and "Sit to Stand" Desks, that convert from a desk at which you sit, to a desk that has a feature that moves and allows you to work while you stand.
One other kind of furniture is popping up and that is a piece that works with flat screen TVs. The piece looks like a credenza until the TV appears on top from inside. Or it may look like a bookcase sitting on a credenza. Interesting ways that fiurniture companies are responding to the new technologies.

BTW, you can see the Repertory Console pictured here at The Neighborhood.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Hekman Repertory Metropolis Castillian Furniture

Hekman: Tuscan Estates

At the October Fall Market 2007 Hekman will make some exciting new introductions.

Hekman has a long Heritage of shopping Italy for unique antique furnishings in the areas century's old estates or in the fine shops of the Tuscan Region running along the Tyrrhenian Sea trom Carrara to the north to Capalbio on the south, Cortona on the west, with Florence right in the middle.

This Tuscan area is full of fine artisans who reproduce and finish these antique finds in small family run shops where time honored techniques continue to be used to manufacture and finish furniture. It is not unusual for family members to labor over pieces for weeks using old world lacquer techniques and adding layers of color, sanding through the finish build up with river rocks and river sand to produce an exacting replica of a fine antique from one of the Tuscan Estates of the area.

Hekman over the years has stored in a warehouse their favorite samples of these fine antiques from the Tuscan Region and is reproducing them and some adaptations in a collection they are calling Tuscan Estates.

This collection consists of two dining rooms, four occasional groupings, entertainment and home office pieces totaling 31 items. The crafting of this collection reflects the use of the time honored techniques of the artisans of Tuscany using hand planed thick veneers randomly laid in horizontal and diagonal patterns and hand rubbed with bee's wax to reflect the patina of an old planked floor. This creates the core finish to the collection named Weathered Walnut. Then on a select number of pieces with generous turnings and carvings Hekman layered color and lacquer and then sanded through these layers using old world sanding techniques to create a rich Rubbed Onyx color.

Hekman married the Rubbed Onyx color in tandem with Weather Walnut to high light the carving details and the flowing lines of each antique reproduction. To finish the collection they have reproduced a jewelry finish called Tortoise Shell using hand detailing like, the ancient artisans to create the mix of colors necessary for this finish.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery is proud to have carried Hekman since 2001.

Bev & Mike

Take A New Look At Hekman

We posted earlier this week that AF Lighting was a 2010 finalist in the The American Society of Furniture Designers  Pinnacle Awards for outstanding home furnishings. One finalist and vendor for Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery that surprised us was Hekman.  Known for classic American traditional casegoods, Hekman frankly, seemed pretty staid and conservative year after year. Not only was Hekman a finalist, but a finalist in two categories:

• Casual Dining - Havana, Phyllis Bridgeman for Hekman Furniture.
• Formal Dining - European Legacy, Chris Bergelin ASFD for Hekman Furniture.

Our rep Tim DeLauder tells us the new Havana Collection is just coming off the press. Havana will be featured in the Summer and Fall up coming markets. Here's a peak:



Havana Pub Table

 

Same Havana style, the Hekman Dining Table

In the European Legacy collection is this beautiful table and sideboard.

 We are excited to see these two collections at World Market in Las Vegas.

One note, Traditional is not for every one, nor is stripped down contemporary. It's all in your taste, desire for comfort, and the mood or ambiance you're trying to create in your home. That's why Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery in the Pearl carries such an array of styles, all well made and having various price points to fit your budget.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design gallery
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News From Market

From FURNITURE Today,

Sam Moore is taking a dozen of Hooker’s best-selling dining and accent chairs and making them available in 25 finishes, more than 800 fabrics and 100 leathers. The program also offers contrasting seat and back fabrics, contrasting pillows, nail-head options, welts, fringes, cords and tassels.

Also new for Sam Moore this market is about 20 frames, seven benches, three upholstered headboards, and 73 fabrics targeting interior designers.

From FURNITURE Today, Hekman is making a major contemporary style statement with its Asher Benjamin collection, designed by Peter and Meg Strattner, creators of the Crate and Barrel look. The clean-lined design for Hekman features American Cherry veneers with walnut accents and a natural cherry finish.

Retailers have been requesting more modern looks, said Neil McKenzie, Hekman’s vice president of product development.

“Not to say that the traditional look is going away, it’s just that there is a niche in the marketplace that is evolving and becoming more evident as this customer gains economic power,” McKenzie said.

“I think what’s happening is we’re slowly seeing a transition to another generation of potential customers. It’s a customer who is more interested in an urban lifestyle within their home than an actual urban geographic location. It’s cleaner lines, cleaner finishes and less encumbered.”

McKenzie added that Hekman still sees lots of customers who want more traditional home office looks and scaling. But he said that creating more modern looks with a compact scale, a good functionality story and clean lines makes sense in this changing market — without compromising quality.

Like Hooker and Aspenhome with its small-scaled Kensington home office introduction, Hekman continues the push into smaller functional desks this market, offering 48-inch and 60-inch footprints.

Those sets feature classic traditional and transitional designs, but are scaled down.

“I’ve had customers saying they’ve seen a transition in customers desiring smaller desks. Is it the economy where a smaller desk is less expensive? I don’t know. We know the request is real and it’s going from coast-to-coast,” McKenzie said.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery is proud to feature Sam Moore and Hekman in our showroom.

Bev & Mike

Marriott Works With Hekman

Marriott has opened a luxury hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan reports Chris Knape and Jenna Carlesso.

From the giant Polish vases filled with locally provided flowers to the hundreds of photographs from sites in Ga District, Ghana; and Perugia, Italy; and other Grand Rapids sister cities, the glittering downtown hotel is a study in cosmopolitan fusion.

Local touches were everywhere during Monday's "sneak peek" media tour of the landmark $100 million, 337-room luxury hotel.

[..]

Furniture from local companies -- primarily Steelcase Inc. and Hekman Inc. -- is found around every turn.

Yes, Hekman is a local company in Grand Rapids, however Marriott is very sensitive to every detail in this spendy refuge for travelers and still chose Hekman. We are proud, as well, to feature Hekman products.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

Daniel Masters Of Hekman On Quality Woodwork

We see a lot of interest in Hekman Furniture via Google web searches at Landfair Furniture (Blog) and our other sites. I want to share some consumer information that will help you navigate our furniture store and others stores you may contact when you begin to shop for furniture for various rooms in your home.

Daniel Masters is the president and owner of Hekman furniture. He is a 29-year veteran of the furniture industry. As an expert, he has written many articles that will help you in your shopping. Here he is on the topic of: How can you tell quality woodwork?

I think it is really important for a consumer to stand back and look at what you are going to buy. Back up in front of the piece of furniture and touch it in the following ways. Run your hands across the top, underneath the edges, and underneath the bottom. What do you feel? The top should be smooth to the touch. When you run your hands around the edges or the sides, there shouldn't be a rough feeling. Sometimes, you feel scratchiness, almost like stubble of a beard. Those are indications that the furniture was not sanded. Now after you have looked at that and gotten a feel for it, you want to stand up to the top, come up and look at the top and inspect the top of the furniture. How or what does the top of the furniture look like? When you walk up to a piece of furniture, you look down at the top and what do you see? Well, here are some things that you should see. Is the wood on the top of the furniture? Can you see small little pieces of wood formed together with little finger joints? That's called finger joint construction and generally speaking, it allows you to use more small wood parts that make it more affordable. When you finish that wood whether it is a light finish or a dark finish, you should be able to see those little joints.

Does the top run very uniformly? Do the edges appear to run at different grain directions? In other words, are they running across and all of a sudden you look at the edge and it is running up and down. That would indicate that this has been neared top. At that particular point you could have two different constructions on the edge. It could be a wood construction that's well done. Or it could be what they call a filled edge, and that is just basically where somebody literally painted on a veneered look, almost sort of like a plastic type of feel to that look. All of those things are determining what the sale price is because there is cost in doing more work to create a piece of furniture. So when you look at that veneer top or wood top, how does it appear to you in looking down at it? Can you sort of pick the edges off? Feel the flip edges of veneers and that type of thing. So at that particular point you should have an idea of what the construction of the material is, or the tops of the furniture you are looking at which is the most important thing.

Right now each of those various constructions are fine. They are all stable. What really happens now is that as your furniture ages, it starts deteriorating. This is a real thing. A piece of wood is cut out of a tree and the tree continues to live in some vague shape or form in your home. It absorbs moisture. When your house is humid, when your house is dry, it dries. It expands and contracts even though it is not a living thing. Over time and usage, the things that are better-built are going to last longer. And so are you buying heirlooms or you are buying things that you want to just give to your kids when they move out on you?

Now, let's move on. When you see the color, does the color look uniform across the top? When you walk around the table, looking down again at the color, can you see shifting light? This would indicate flip in the veneers which is something that the salesperson should be explaining to you. Light will hit the top of the veneered table and give you a different color from different angles. But the most important thing is that when you are looking at this color on the retail floor, is the color uniform from piece to piece? In other words, do you have dark spots and light spots?

As a consumer, when you get that in your home, it is going to age differently. Over time in a home, light will come in and out and the furniture will get either richer or warmer or start to get bleached out. If you are going to start with somebody delivering furniture to your house that is not uniform in color and appearance, it is going to age just like different people age.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery always has a number of Hekman pieces on our floor and we invite you to compare the quality and the price. Do the "hands on" tests that Masters suggests. Did we mention the furniture is beautiful, to boot?

Bev & Mike

Hekman Furniture Daniel Masters Interior Designe Bev & Mike

The Hekman Asher Benjamin Collection

Back in April we reported that Hekman had teamed up with Peter and Meg Strattner, creators of the Crate and Barrel look, in a new collection of casegoods, the Asher Benjamin collection.

The clean-lined design for Hekman features American Cherry veneers with walnut accents and a natural cherry finish.

“I think what’s happening is we’re slowly seeing a transition to another generation of potential customers. It’s a customer who is more interested in an urban lifestyle within their home than an actual urban geographic location. It’s cleaner lines, cleaner finishes and less encumbered.”

We now have pictures of the designs on the Hekman website.

The table at the top is:

* Select solids, flat cut cherry veneer, and walnut bead
* Three 18" leaves
* Extends to 102" with all three leaves
* Asher Benjamin finish on select hardwood solids and veneers

Dimensions

* Height: 29" (74 cm)
* Diameter: 48" (122 cm)

The finish is called Asher Benjamin:



Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery

HDTV IS Coming!

The December/January issue of Metropolitan Home just arrived in the mail and includes an interesting article, HDTV Prepare for a Big Change, TV as we know it is about to change forever.

On February 17, 2009 the analog signal will end and the digital signal will take over. By March of 2007, every TV sold will come with a digital tuner that will allow you to receive digital broadcasts.

Metropolitan Home has a shopping guide and explains that HDTV comes in a variety of flat screens including LCD (up to 60 inches) and Plasma (wide viewing angle and 40 to 80 inches), rear projection, direct view and front projectors.

Then there is the audition.

Before you leave home, measure the viewing distance from your couch (sofa) to your current TV. At the store, stand the same distance from the screen. You should see a seamless picture without visible lines (or Pixels) in the image. If you want the TV to be viewable over a wide area-say from the kitchen and the family room-walk to the far sides of the screen to see if you have a good view off-angle.

Ask to see both HD and standard programming.

Consider bringing a DVD to see how it handles content that you know.

If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Picture Quality is subject to three versions:

SDTV - your least expensive option. These sets generally measure 32-inches or less and picture quality is on a par with DVD (480 scanning lines).

EDTV - better resolution than SDTV, but will not give you full benefit of HDTV

HDTV - best of the best. While more expensive, they can fully display all types of high definition (720 by 1080 lines of resolution).

Remember: 1080p

You may need new furniture to accomodate your new TV. Look for a cabinet or wall unit with a large enough opening for your new TV. You might make a cardboard template of your cabinet when shopping for a TV or vice versa. Allow 2 inches around the cut out for ventilation.

Look for furniture that has wire management solutions built in. Holes in the rear accomodate wires and provide ventilation.

Make sure the cabinet allows the TV to sit flush with the front of the shelf so it can be seen from all angles.

Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery features Hekman, Hammary and Nichols & Stone that have styles specifically geared to flat screen TVs. Hekman has consoles that conseal the TV until you are ready to view your program.

Bev & Mike

UPDATE: Kevin Hunt has further thoughts about HDTV in What You Should Know About HDTV, From A Guru

Storefronts

by ANNE LAUFE

LANDFAIR FURNITURE AND DESIGN GALLERY

What's new: This spacious furniture store, the first tenant in the new Pearl Design Center, opened in March on the northern edge of the Pearl District.

Where & when: 1636 N.W. 15th Ave. at Savier Street under the Fremont Bridge, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

What's cool: Landfair carries an eclectic array of home furnishings -- from traditional to contemporary -- from designers such as J.D. Chamberlain, Sherrill, Rowe and Hekman. It also plans to add a line of durable, affordable children's furniture.

Who: Beverly and Michael Landfair opened their first store on Macadam Avenue in Southwest six years ago. Beverly says she travels to High Point, N.C. -- "the daddy of all markets for furniture buyers" -- every six months.

Why here: When the Landfairs lost the lease on their first store, they looked around for something bigger and more accessible. This section of the Pearl is becoming known as the Design District, with Globe Lighting, Bedford Brown, Kravet and other related businesses within a few blocks of one another.

Quote: "We have animal crackers out and water in the fridge," Beverly Landfair says. "We try to make it kind of homey." Get in touch: 503-245-4222

ANNE LAUFE Have a Storefronts tip? Send details to Portland@news.oregonian.com

To Market, To Market!

Bev is off to Las Vegas tomorrow, Wednesday, for the Home Furnishings Market. "I am excited to see Dinec'," she says. Dinec' is relaunching the company at market after seeking court protection and then being sold to Bermex in April.

Dinec' will be offering three new bedrooms and 10 new dining chairs. Apparently they have simplified their offerings and stress that they are one of the most personalized manufacturers. In addition, they are broadening their focus from purely contemporary to a mix of offerings, by adding some traditional.

She's excited about leaving with her sister Carol Brandis , but first she and I get to celebrate 14 years of marriage tonight with dinner at standing room only Nuestra Cocina at 21st and SE Division.

Bev will be visiting Hekman, Palecek, CBK, Mirador and many others. Speaking of Mirador, they will unveil more than a dozen TV cabinets some able to handle 60 inch flatscreens.


She will have all the "dish", when she returns to the store on Saturday.

Bev & Mike
Landfair Furniture + Design Gallery