Showroom for homeowners emphasizes western woods

tTATERING to the homeowner Vand remodeling business. Memphis Sash and Door Co., Memphis, Tn., opened Huttig Windows, Doors and More in Bartlett, a Memphis suburb.

"The whole concept really started," says Carl Ripperton, regional manager, "because we are a onestep branch dealing with residential contractors. Through the years, we have been dealing with homeowners more and more frequently. After a year, the contractor's responsibility to the homeowner is ended. So where do homeowners go if they have trouble with an item in their home or if they want to do some upgrading or remodeling? The contractors have been sending them to us."

The company began with direct customer sales and established an inhouse showroom. Problems arose when the homeowner/remodeling business kept increasing and there was no one available to staff the showroom full time.

"We were glad to have the traffic," Ripperton explains, "but it was disruptive to our regular activities to have homeowners come in during regular business hours. That is one big reason we considered a separate showroom facility specifically geared for the market that was approaching us."

The showroom, which is located in Normandy Place Shopping Center, displays and sells stair parts, columns, trims and millwork in addition to doors and windows. Most of their products, such as Simpson doors and millwork from Dorris Lumber & Moulding Co., Sacramento, Ca., are manufactured from western woods.

Customers pass through the main entrance into a patio colonnade area and from there through a magnificent door with sidelights into a foyer. At this point they could be in a small, but attractive house. The showroom contains a dining room, a living room and a den. All the products shown are built in as they would be in a home.

Library paneling, ceiling moulds, chair rails, shadow box walls and various window and door trims simulate actual use in a home. Free standing displays of door and window products augment these.

The showroom has recently been duplicated at the Huttig branch in Knoxville. With the dollars spent on remodeling approaching the dollars spent on new construction, there is a big market waiting out there. "[n the rest of the country, wood is coming back," Ripperton said. "[t never left here." Wood doors, windows and lots of millwork are popular with southern homeowners-

Open a little over a year, the showroom has used some print, radio and television advertising to boost the steadily increasing traffic. "Some of our best advertising has

Story at a Glance

Memphis, Tn., wholesaler opens showroom for remodeling homeowners... model rooms display doors, windows, millwork... western woods predominate.

been word-of-mouth," Ripperton notes.

Last spring the showroom began to offer installed sales. Using the quality sub-contractors and remodeling contractors with whom Memphis Sash and Door regularly works, the service makes the prospect of remodeling or upgrading easier.

Memphis Sash and Door Co. was incorporated in 1908. It has been a member of the Huttig Sash and Door group of companies since 1922. The company has 70 employees and services a 150 mile radius from its one location in Memphis. The outlet sells mainly to residential contractors.