Jim Hering and Ron Werner, founders of Denver upscale retailer HW Home, understand the importance of delivering style, service and quality. It’s led to a successful operation that includes four stores, a design studio and a 12,000-sq.-ft. warehouse in one of the most affluent markets in the country. It has also garnered an impressive list of honors that includes two ARTS Awards for retailing, an Innovation Award nomination from the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts, an Illumination Design Award from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, an Equality in Business Award from The Human Rights Campaign, and a handful of editors’ and readers’ choice awards from the local media.
But it may be Hering and Werner’s emphasis on developing and maintaining good relations with everyone — customers, staff and vendors alike — that gives HW Home its competitive edge. They refer to it as living in the “yes.”
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| Ron Werner and Jim Hering with Zach. |
The concept involved growing their vendors and trade partners’ businesses by providing insight and input on product design and development, and synching all parts of the supply chain with the desires of the consumer. It also means operating as a non-commission business to encourage support among the sales team, and staying focused on providing exceptional service in stylish surroundings for every person who walks through the door.
Hering and Werner say their greatest challenge is getting that client to walk into one of their stores or click onto their Web site for the first time. “Once they are in and have the HW Home experience, their second visit is a certainty,” Hering said.
All of the HW Home stores are designed to provide an inspirational, moving respite from the outside world. The merchandising reflects the travels and experiences of the owners, each vignette personalized with a unique color palette and comforting setting. The result is a store that creates intimacy in the midst of a broad, unique product mix, and one that attests to the perfect harmony of Werner and Hering’s merchandising and management styles.
Werner was a senior vice president at Smith Barney in Chicago when he first met Hering, then the general manager for Holly Hunt‘s flagship showroom in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. After briefly exploring the idea of starting their own design firm and home furnishings boutique, the two ruled out Chicago as a startup location. Around that time, in 1998, they visited Werner’s sister in Boulder to help her decorate her home, fell in love with the Rockies and, after realizing a void in the upper-end furnishings market there, decided they had found their niche.
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| A 14-foot veined onyx counter adds drama to the creation of Denver architect Eric Mandil, who combined several elements to evoke a timeless glamour in the new store. “The last thing we wanted to look like was a shiny new boutique,” Mandil said. The Logo wall behind the counter is also made of onyx and was designed by Hering and Mandil. |
A year later they opened the first HW Home store in a historical row house in Boulder. The following year, the store moved into a larger space next door and the row house became the home of HW Design. In 2000, the second HW Home store opened in The Village at Flatiron Crossing Mall, followed in 2004 by a third store in Denver’s Cherry Creek North shopping district. In 2006, the Boulder store expanded back into its original row house structure and HW Design relocated to a larger commercial studio space in Boulder.
Most recently, Hering and Werner expanded their mountain modern aesthetic to Denver’s south side with the opening of the fourth HW Home store in The Village Shops at The Landmark, a new luxury residential/retail community. “Being able to provide personal design concierge service to hundreds of luxury condominium residents next door to us is very appealing,” Hering said.
Each of the four HW Home stores maintains its own personality and community constituency. “From the beginning, we were conscious of the brand we were creating,” Werner said. “We knew that with growth into new demographics, we still needed a commonality and aesthetic thread to weave through the entire organization.”
To that end, the new store features brand standards as well as reclaimed flooring from an old North Carolina tobacco factory, cream block limestone walls and a 14-foot veined onyx counter. Denver architect Eric Mandil was challenged to create chic drama in the rectangular footprint. “The marriage of cream stone, distressed flooring, veined onyx and silver accents was to create a timeless glamour to the HW Home brand,” Mandil said. “The last thing we wanted to look like was a shiny new boutique.”
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| HW Home’s new store, Werner and Hering’s fourth, features reclaimed flooring from an old North Carolina tobacco factory and cream block limestone walls. Maui, a Labrador owned by HW Home design consultant Allison Hefner, feels right at home in the new store. |
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| HW Home’s mountain modern aesthetic is presented via intimate vignettes such as this dining group that features an Algonquin Table by Michael Weiss for Vanguard set with pewter tableware from South African artist Carroll Boyes. Also shown, a William Sofette and Giselle Arm Chair by Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams. |
HW Home’s customers range in age from early 20s to mid-70s and beyond. The vendor mix supports a designer desiring the $10,000+ sofa for her client, and the under $2,000 style for the newlyweds buying for their first home.
“As our categories are so broad, one can say that we are entry level high design,” Hering said. “Part of our success is having a keen design eye and buying smart … and also keeping it fresh. It is not unusual for a client to enter and state ‘I haven’t been here in a few months and came in to see what’s new.’”
Hering and Werner say design integrity and high quality always trump price. “Years ago we made the decision to drop our table lamp collections under $200 and focus on the beauty of the $400+ designs and our table lamp business grew exponentially,” Hering said. They eschew trends, searching instead for products with clean classic lines that will work no matter the client’s style period. “If an item is hot for all of the right reasons, it will be hot for years to come,” he said. “We are searching for those accents that are timeless in their design, form and function. You simply can’t lose with that strategy.”
Hundreds of people line up to get into HW Home’s one sale each year. For that reason, yearly purchases include buying out vendor showrooms so the sales always include 70% to 80% new merchandise. “Our best vendors support the sale with special product and many of our finer reps work alongside our team each day of the sale,” Werner said. HW Home doesn’t run markdown sales in any of its stores. “Occasionally we will tag a piece ‘last of’ but we prefer to educate our team and our customers that our stores run great value every day,” he said. “We would rather pull an item and hold it for the annual warehouse sale than fill the store with markdowns.”
The store also has a strong special order business, and the warehouse operation in Boulder enables immediate delivery of more than 90% of what is shown on the floor. “Our director of operations is committed to zero breakage in our warehousing and installation movements,” Hering said. “And working pre-emptively with vendors on quality and packaging issues reduces items that need to be discounted.”
Marketing is highly targeted with ads appearing in magazines such as InStyle, House Beautiful, Time, Travel & Leisure and Traditional Home. The retailer’s Web site, hwhome.com relaunched last year as an interactive eCommerce site. The stores’ calendar of events include trunk shows, designer appearances, non-profit membership receptions, special shopping weekends and events for social service organizations that directly benefit local communities in need.
Hering and Werner enjoy telling their clients that they do not have a catalog. “Our items are so unique — we travel the globe to bring back the most obscure — and our inventory changes so quickly on the floors, that we could not begin to create one,” Werner said.
They also stress that the HW Home concept is much more than a brick and mortar boutique. “We have always approached our businesses as being extremely personal,” he said. “We love to help people make their lives more comfortable and beautiful. Operating a tangible business in the ‘yes,’ creating comfort for people and growing through all the challenges is extremely rewarding.”
