Rearranging the furniture

By KRISTI ALBERTSON

Hillstead's to focus exclusively on living-room furnishings

The Daily Inter Lake

Change is the one thing that has remained constant at Hillstead's Home Furnishings.

In its 56-year life span, the business has metamorphosed from a clothing store to a department store to a furniture store. After Labor Day, it will begin yet another transformation.

For more than 30 years, Hillstead's has sold furniture for nearly every room in the house, from the bedroom to the dining room to the living room. Now, however, the store will focus on the latter.

"The key to the furniture business is turns," said Joel Hillstead, chairman of the board and the second of four generations of Hillsteads to work at the store. "We realized we had an inordinate amount of slow-moving merchandise."

People replace living-room furniture far more often than they do dining or bedroom furniture, he explained, estimating that 80 percent of his customers still have the same bedroom set they had when they got married.

"You'll pass it on to your kids before you buy a new one," he said.

People are less concerned about bedroom or dining furniture because fewer people see those rooms.

"The living room is where most people want to give that appearance of being up-to-date and modern and fresh," he said.

Since living-room furniture is so much more popular, Hillstead's will focus on it exclusively.

"Having 70 percent of your inventory tied up in something that's producing 30 percent of your volume doesn't make much sense. It's just economy is all it is," Hillstead said. "We want to have the things our customers are buying."

The store will also carry more high-end furniture in the future. It will always carry affordable items, Hillstead said, but he and his family want to provide "nicer-line upholstery" for customers who want it.

"Our idea is to compete price-wise, but we also want to be in better lines of furniture," he said. "A lot of people can't afford a $2,500 sofa. But a lot of people can, and they're moving into our valley."

Available space was another factor in the Hillsteads' decision to focus on living-room furniture. The store is about 13,000 square feet; some furniture stores in the valley are five times that size, Hillstead said. His son, Cole, who owns and manages the store with his wife, Cathy, decided Hillstead's needed to take a new route in order to be competitive.

"Cole realized we didn't have the room to do all we wanted to do," he said.

They didn't want to relocate, he said; they've been very successful on East Idaho Street.

"The saying is, 'Location, location, location,'" Hillstead said. "So why move and give up the location? We decided to make the best of what we have."

There is no room for expansion because the property around the store is not for sale. Instead, the Hillsteads will improve and remodel the existing store.

"It will have a nice, new look on the outside," Hillstead said. "I think a fresh look and a fresh start is really what we want to do."

It's not the business' first fresh start. Hillstead's initially dealt strictly in clothing, after Joel's parents, Bill and Bird Hillstead, bought and renamed Winkler's Clothing Store in 1950.

In 1975, their son bought Buttrey's Department Store. The new owners retained many of the old employees and merchandise, which included furniture.

A year later, when the building burned down, Hillstead's relocated to the Gateway West Mall. The store was there for 20 years, and during that time branches opened in Whitefish, Helena and Butte.

When its lease at Gateway West ran out, Hillstead's closed every department but furniture. In 1995, it moved to its current location on East Idaho. Since then, the store has dealt solely in home furnishings.

Hillstead's outside remodel will begin shortly after Labor Day. It will include improving and finishing the store's parking lot, which will more than double existing parking, Cole Hillstead said. The store will have a new entrance toward the back of the store, where the new parking will go, and a new, as yet undetermined, name.

A 2,200-square-foot room in the store that has previously held dining room furniture will become The Mattress Company. Until now, The Mattress Company has been part of Hillstead's Home Furnishings, but it will become its own entity - still Hillstead owned and operated - with its own entrance.

They will lower that room's ceiling, Hillstead said, and improve lighting throughout the store. Current lighting is "very, very poor," he said. "The goal is when somebody walks into the store, they can see what they're buying."

Hillstead's will remain open throughout most of the remodel, he said. The transformation will take place in phases, with only part of the store being worked on at once.

"We're going to do like the groceries do and work around the workmen as best we can," he said. "But it probably will get to the point where we have to close the store for just a short period of time."

To make room for the new furniture, everything in the store must be sold. Every item is marked down, and if last week's sales are any indication, Hillstead expects it all to be gone in about 60 days.

"Everything will be sold eventually," he said. "People ought to take advantage of it while we've still got it."

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com