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A Catalog Entrepreneur Takes the New York Test

April 3, 2003

By CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE

SAN FRANCISCO

THE topic at Rob Forbes's penthouse on Russian Hill here was supposed to be furniture: to be exact, how Mr. Forbeswas planning to fill his converted ballroom atop a building from the 1920's. Given Mr. Forbes's credentials - he is founder of Design Within Reach, the Internet and catalog retailer of modern furniture whose first New York outlet opened on Saturday - it seemed reasonable to expect that he might turn his 2,200-square-foot apartment, bought at the end of last year, into a high-design laboratory.

But Mr. Forbes, 51, a potter with an M.B.A. from Stanford, explained that he was concentrating on living in the apartment for a while and absorbing its stunning view of skyscrapers, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, sailboats and the distant green hills of Berkeley and Oakland.

Six weeks after he had moved in, the penthouse was still a little bare, offering a mixture of ad hoc chic and bachelor-pad minimalism. Mr. Forbes had installed some of his own vintage pieces (a small table and chairs by Alvar Aalto, a bench by Hugh Acton and a pair of Pelican chairs by the Danish designer Finn Juhl) and reproductions, including a Noguchi sofa and a red table by Piero Lissoni.

"You know, I really like this place without anything in it," he said. "The space and the view are luxuries on their own."

Mr. Forbes and his partners take a decidedly more aggressive approach to running Design Within Reach, which offers midcentury classics and pieces by younger designers and has expanded rapidly since its founding. Indeed, even as Design Within Reach continues its Web site (www.dwr.com) and its catalogs - sending out more than 500,000 each month - the company has pursued an ambitious expansion into retail outlets over the last 18 months. The 10th Design Within Reach store is a 3,500-square-foot split-level space on Wooster Street in Manhattan designed by the architect Alberto Rivera, who also oversaw the company's new studio in Beverly Hills. Another New York store, in the meatpacking district, and two locations in Florida are also planned.

The stores represent a shift in strategy for a company founded as a streamlined New Economy business in San Francisco in 1999, in the midst of dot-com mania in the Bay Area. Wayne L. Badovinus, chief executive of Design Within Reach, who met Mr. Forbes while both were working for Williams-Sonoma, the housewares company, in the early 1980's, said they had vowed that "we weren't going into the bricks and mortar business."

Mr. Forbes said: "It turns out that a lot of people just like talking to people and the eye contact instead of filling in forms online. For many people, the activity of shopping is a huge pleasure."

The new Design Within Reach stores appear at a time Mr. Forbes's own profile is rising. Last year he joined the executive board of the International Design Conference in Aspen and served as a juror for Cooper-Hewitt's nationaldesign awards and for I.D. magazine's annual design review; he is an increasingly visible presence on the furniture fair circuit.

The Design Within Reach catalog includes an ever-shifting cast of new discoveries to go with its standbys by Ray and Charles Eames and Philippe Starck, reflecting the fruits of Mr. Forbes's frequent research trips. Jennifer Carpenter of Truck Product Architecture in New York said that even when the company was developing its earliest furniture designs, she hoped for a deal with Design Within Reach, as opposed to bigger retailers. Truck Product signed an exclusive deal with the company this year to carry two versions of its 2-Way table, which features a powder-coated lacquer top and a reversible plywood base.

"My goal, absolutely, was Design Within Reach," said Ms. Carpenter. "It's a well-edited collection, full of things that when I was practicing as an architect, I would have specced for a job."

What the company buys, she said, is news in the design world. "I've found that people read the catalog like a magazine," she said. "And every architect I know gets it."

Design Within Reach, whose original backers include Reed Business Information, the publisher of Interior Design magazine, and Jesse.Hansen&Co., a San Francisco equity firm, is privately held. Mr. Badovinus declined to say ifthe company is profitable but confirmed that sales have increased by at least 50 percent in each of the last three years, to about $60 million in 2002.

Despite that growth, the move to New York is a risky one. Their DWR Studio at 142 Wooster Street, near Prince Street, is already open; a sister store is scheduled to open in May at 408 West 14th Street, near Ninth Avenue and the new Vitra store. But Design Within Reach is entering Manhattan in a sluggish economy and a war in Iraq and in the wake of several recent signs of trouble in the furniture business. Herman Miller Inc., based in Michigan, had a 34 percent drop in sales in its 2002 fiscal year, and shuttered its modestly priced Herman Miller Red line.

Other casualties include the modern-furniture retailer Palazzetti, which declared bankruptcy last month after 22 years in business, and Full Upright Position, an online and catalog retailer that provided early competition for Design Within Reach. Sergio Palazzetti, the founder of the Palazzetti chain, worried about the chances of Design Within Reach succeeding with retail outlets. "They were successful because they had no stores," he said, "no overhead. There are problems to opening a chain of stores and managing locations from a distance. They're changing their formula."

There are signs, meanwhile, that the revival of midcentury modernism may be tapering off, replaced by a taste for more daring and eclecticism in interior design.

"It's a really tough time in the industry," Mr. Forbes acknowledged. "But we think there's a healthy discipline in operating in an economy where things don't come easily." He also suggested that a retail niche big enough to drive an Airstream trailer through remains between the mass market offerings of Ikea and Pottery Barn and high-design boutiques like Moss and outlets of European manufacturers like Kartell and Vitra. Or for that matter like Palazzetti.

Even as it seeks a broader public profile with its retail outlets, Design Within Reach is hoping to solidify its relationship with professionals. This month it is introducing services under the Profile name aimed at professional designers, architects and decorators, a group the company estimates accounts for about half its sales. A new annual catalog, called Profile Workbook, will offer more product details and fewer glamour photographs of the furniture. It will be accompanied by a second DWR Web site (www.dwrprofile.com) and a chatty, tabloid-size magazine, both of which are pitched to the trade. "We think if we lose that sense of direct connection with professionals, we diminish our place in the market," Mr. Badovinus said.

With its $3,795 sofas and $2,300 credenzas, Design Within Reach does not exactly offer rock-bottom prices; indeed, some younger fans of the company in California have nicknamed it DNQWR, for Design Not Quite Within Reach. But the company's combination of competitive pricing and ready-to-ship inventory has helped set it apart. Keven Wilder, a retail consultant in Chicago, praised the company's strategy. She drew a distinction between the old-school approach to modern furniture, "where you order it and put a chunk of money down and you wait," and a new model, practiced by Design Within Reach, aimed at a younger and less patient consumer. "These days, especially if eople are ordering online, they want it right away," Ms. Wilder said.

In its effort to sell classics of midcentury design at relatively low prices, Design Within Reach has navigated some tricky byways of the furniture business. One example is the steel and leather chair created by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the German Pavilion at the 1929 International Exhibition in Barcelona.

Knoll, based in Pennsylvania, has been the licensed manufacturer of the chair since 1948, and holds a trademark on the Barcelona name. But the design itself reverted to the public domain more than five decades ago.

Manufacturers argue that unlicensed versions of well-known designs cost them millions in revenue each year. In 1998, Herman Miller sued Palazzetti over a famous lounge chair and ottoman by Charles and Ray Eames. A court ruled that Palazzetti could legally sell the chair, but not under the Eames name. Design Within Reach sells a version of the Mies Barcelona chair that is not manufactured by Knoll - Mr. Forbes says it is made in an Italian factory - and sidesteps the trademark issue by calling it the Pavilion chair. The Knoll Barcelona chair can sell for $4,500 and take 12 to 14 weeks to be delivered. Design Within Reach charges $1,995 for its Pavilion chair, and ships it within two to four weeks from its warehouse in Union City, Calif.

"We think people come to Knoll for that chair because we worked with Mies and have been careful to conform to the original specifications," said Liz Needle, general manager of Knoll Studio. "Is it frustrating that people sometimesdon't buy Knoll quality but think that's what they're getting? Sure."

Mr. Forbes defends the craftsmanship of his company's Mies chair. He adds that while he was unable to strike a deal with Knoll to carry its products, he has done so with Herman Miller and other well-known manufacturers.

A weekly e-mail newsletter sent to 170,000 subscribers has helped create Mr. Forbes's persona, which hovers somewhere between fan and tastemaker. The electronic dispatches detail his trips to European furniture fairs andarchitectural landmarks and his visits with designers around the world. Last month, for example, he wrote about chatting with the German lighting designer Ingo Maurer in an Italian trattoria.

Mr. Badovinus, who maintains a low public profile compared with Mr. Forbes, said that the company's customers had responded warmly to Mr. Forbes and his efforts. "Sometimes modern design can seem cold or hard-edged," he said, "and Rob helps soften that. In essence what he's saying is, `I'm a design enthusiast, you're a design enthusiast, and isn't this stuff cool?' "

That attitude was certainly on view in Mr. Forbes's apartment, where he spent several minutes singing the praises of some of his favorite possessions, the Aalto chair ("I love the way the back connects") and Acton bench ("See those feet on it, how they look like they're walking?"), before heading into his bedroom.

A patchwork quilt, produced by a group of women in Gee's Bend, Ala., whose work was recently shown at the Whitney Museum, lay across the bed. Almost neon-bright, it offered a jarring contrast to the Oriental carpet on the floor. Mr. Forbes said he bought it from Odd Fellows Antiques, in Maine. "It's what an Amish quilt would look like if the Amish had more sex," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/03/garden/03ROBB.html?ex=1050540221&ei=1&en=ac8b074e7fea376b

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