One of the mottos for our N.Y.C.-based retail flooring business is “luxury without elitism.” It means that no matter what you look like, no matter how big your apartment is, if you come into one of our showrooms, we want you to feel great—and if you want to know about wood floors, we’ll tell you about them.
This ethos started when my family came to America with absolutely nothing. We came over from Kharkiv, Ukraine, when I was three months old. We settled in Brooklyn, N.Y., where we have a location to this day. I literally have no idea how my family survived those first couple of years in a new country learning a new culture and language as they went.
My great-uncle was a woodworker; he made medallions and inlays that were very traditional, and he was very, very good at it. So, in 1989, my family founded a wood flooring business. They built the business from the ground up, believing that with a dedication to hard work, love and craftsmanship, truly anything is possible.
Over the years, we’ve become a staple for high-end projects around New York City and have also expanded with locations in Boston, Miami, Dallas and New Jersey. But we never forgot our company’s humble beginnings, and that foundation has continued to inspire how we run our business.
It sets us apart
One of the main things that separates us from a lot of the other high-end flooring showrooms around the world is that we’re very down to earth; we know how to deal with the architects and designers and the upper echelon of our industry, but we put just as much emphasis on wood flooring projects on a budget. We sell our high-end prefinished flooring, but also sell unfinished No. 2 red oak and white oak. It’s not always prefinished, fancy material. If it’s an unfinished project and you’re going to need some poly, we can provide that, as well.
We aim to have something for everybody. For instance, if an installer needs a bucket of glue, I’m not going to say, “Go to Lowe’s.” Rather, it’s “OK, I’ll add it to the truck.” We’re able to do that efficiently by using our own warehouses in the Tri-State area and using our own flatbeds and our own vans. Customer service gets elevated when you control certain things.
We are also really active in offering CEU courses, including 14 new NWFA courses. We are proud to offer AIA, USGBC/GBCI courses, as well as our own PID Floors courses.
My father, uncle and great-uncle (from left to right) founded our company after emigrating from Ukraine in 1988. Today, we work to maintain the same value of providing “luxury without elitism.”
It helps us stay focused
Knowing our product well allows us to help clients explore lower price points. We have clients coming in all the time asking about samples from elsewhere, and we are able to talk about them because we know our stuff. We’re always approached with the idea to take a line of carpet or something else that I don’t know anything about. Of course, doing so can open the doors to other opportunities and projects. But for us, wood floors are a full-time job, day and night—I spend 24 hours a day thinking about wood floors. I don’t think it would be fair to the customer if I also took on carpet or linoleum or tile. Tile is a huge industry, and we could sell tile all day, but I don’t know anything about it, and we want to make sure we’re super attentive to our expertise. Wood floors are a big investment, so we feel that if somebody is willing to come into one of our showrooms on a Tuesday at 2 o’clock, then we need to be very focused and very informed as to exactly what’s going on in our industry and not just try to make a sale.
It makes our clients like family
We’re still a family business, and a “luxury without elitism” stance means we pride ourselves in treating each of our clients like a friend. My biggest piece of advice is that when that client walks in, stop what you’re doing and just focus on that one client, and it’s just going to work out. If you have two clients, if you have 15 clients, hire somebody else and make sure they’re taken care of and stick to what you know. At the same time, a client can own half of Manhattan, but if they come in with an attitude, that’s not going to work. I very much appreciate what my family started, and it’s important for me to keep those sorts of ideas of openness and humility at play. That’s how we hire and that’s what the staff understands—and we truly have the best staff in the world. And I think this message resonates with clients, as well.
