Maine Cottage opens Charleston store
By Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, April 21, 2003
Charleston, S.C. — Maine Cottage has opened a 3,600-square-foot showroom and design studio here, its second store anywhere and the first of what could be five in this area as the manufacturer and retailer positions itself as a coastal home furnishings expert.
The upscale store is at a busy intersection on King Street in Charleston's revitalized historic district.
It has a first-level, 2,400-square-foot showroom filled with the company's colorful home furnishings and a 1,200-square-foot design studio upstairs, targeting what the company believes will be a brisk business.
"We expect at least half of the business will be interior designers," said David Petersen, vice president and general manager of the Yarmouth, Maine-based company. The studio, separate from the showroom hubbub, will allow designers and clients to spend a morning over coffee going through catalogs and fabrics in a "relatively private place," he said.
The store is the first for the company since it opened a 3,200-square-foot headquarters store in Yarmouth in 1989, but Petersen said there are plans for more here.
"We'd like to be successful in Charleston and then open two, three or four stores in that general area," he said. Future stores would range from 2,500 to 4,000 square feet and could be located anywhere from Wilmington, N.C., south to Brunswick, Ga., sharing distribution and marketing costs.
Maine Cottage co-founder Peter Bass "would like to see us get that done in two to three years," Petersen said, adding that it's likely the additional stores would open concurrently.
Meanwhile, business in Charleston is off to a strong start and the store should reach an annual sales run rate of about $700,000 by this fall, he said. Eventually, he added, the store and others planned should each do more than $1 million a year.
Total annual revenues for Maine Cottage are about $8 million, the bulk coming from wholesale sales to retailers.
Petersen described Charleston as the epicenter of world-class upscale coastal homes, which Maine Cottage is well positioned to furnish with its broad mix of product, including wood furniture available in 40 paint colors and upholstery in more than 50 fabrics. Coastal homes typically have many guest bedrooms, where the owners tend to want creative decor and slightly smaller-scale pieces — two niches the company fits well.
Maine Cottage brand sofas, from supplier C.R. Laine, retail from about $2,000 to $3,000. Queen beds typically retail for $1,200 to $2,700. Delivery generally is within six to eight weeks of an order.
The store has little of the company's youth furniture. Maine Cottage prefers to leave that business primarily to small juvenile specialty stores in major metropolitan areas.
