Father launched business as used furniture store
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, February 16, 2004
YBOR CITY, Fla. — The Cadrecha family furniture business was started 61 years ago in one of the two buildings the company occupies today. But it started at the opposite end of the price spectrum.
Belarmino Cadrecha, father of Design Interiors President Bob Cadrecha, emigrated from Spain in 1914 with little money and a sixth-grade education. He went to work in Ybor City's bustling cigar industry (the city's first cigar factory is now an office building behind a Design Interiors showroom) before opening a second-hand furniture store in 1943.
In the 1960s Bob Cadrecha and his brother Bill bought the business from their father. They also formed Tampa Wholesale Furniture and began selling promotionally priced furniture to small stores around the South.
The brothers started Design Interiors in 1973 as a trade-only showroom at what is now the East store on Seventh Avenue, while Tampa Wholesale operated the West showroom on the same street.
Bill Cadrecha retired about 10 years ago and Bob closed Tampa Wholesale, converting the West showroom to another Design Interiors with a midpriced slant. It stayed that way until the business was opened to the public last month.
Bob Cadrecha had contemplated the move a few years ago, after he struck up a friendship with Tommy McCleod, president of Birmingham Wholesale Furniture. McCleod's stores successfully went through a similar transition several years ago.
When the Cadrecha family finally decided to make the jump, two Design Interiors executives visited Birmingham Wholesale.
"They went up with lots and lots of questions and came back with lots of answers and a lot of encouragement from Tommy," Bob Cadrecha said. "He's been nothing but very helpful."
Changes have included the addition of a few more salespeople, the retagging of merchandise with prices instead of codes, and a big increase in the advertising budget to what Bob Cadrecha estimates will be about 5% of sales. The showrooms also are open on Saturdays now, although only until 5 p.m., and remain closed on Sundays.
The East store also got an exterior makeover — actually a restoration that returned the historic, two-level building to much of its early-1900s shape. The cedar shakes hung on the building in a 1970s renovation were removed and the old brick front was uncovered.
On one side, Design Interiors left the painted sign from a former tenant (Furniture City) and another fading sign indicating the store once provided "wagon and buggy sales."
The restoration cost more than the $200,000 Bob Cadrecha had budgeted, but "I really wanted to do it right," he said.
Next to the West store is a depot, called Cadrecha Plaza Station, for one of the electric streetcars that run to and from downtown Tampa. Bob Cadrecha bought the naming rights as a memorial to his father.
