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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Hotel Room Luxury

High-end hotels update their rooms every seven to eight years, which is why Carson Norcross has targeted them in the marketing efforts of his custom furniture manufacturer Norcross Furniture in Westlake Village. Norcross makes furniture exclusively for the hospitality industry. Its headboards, dressers, desks, countertops and chairs can be found in hotel chains run by Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Marriott International. “With general growth and economies in North America and the U.S., there is more demand for high-end furniture,” Norcross said. This spring, the company released four new luxury collections. The Albert, Anne, William and Kay collections offer design-centric pieces appealing to different tastes and aesthetics. The collections were named for Norcross’ family members. Norcross has manufacturing facilities in China, Vietnam and North Carolina. It works with both hotel ownership groups and the chains themselves. It also works with hospitality design firms on the look of the furniture, Norcross said. “They design and choose everything that will go into not only the guest rooms but the corridors, the public spaces, the restaurant, the hallways, the front entry lobby, the pool area,” he added. Bruce Baltin, managing director of the hotel consulting business for real estate firm CBRE Group Inc. in Los Angeles, put the refurbishment cycle for hotel furniture at every eight to 10 years. Soft goods, like carpeting and drapes, are replaced every five years. And guests absolutely pay attention to the furniture in a hotel room, he said. “If it is dated, it shows,” Baltin explained. “A room needs to look fresh.” Business heritage Norcross describes himself as a third-generation furniture guy. His grandfather started in the business in the late 1960s and his father later joined the family company. Norcross joined that firm and worked at Mark David & Co. as director of international sales for the upscale provider of upholstered seating to the hospitality industry. That company was acquired in 2008 by Kohler Co. After relocating to Southern California from North Carolina, Norcross started his own furniture manufacturing company in 2015. “It is wild that I would come back to what I know and what is in my blood,” he told the Business Journal. When it comes to establishing relations with hospitality industry companies, Norcross said a lot of it comes down to word of mouth and face-to-face meetings. The custom contract furniture industry is not that big, he added. In addition to the meetings, the company distributes catalogues, exhibits at trade shows and takes out ads in industry publications. “There are a lot of industry functions that we will sponsor and attend,” Norcross said in reference to the company’s marketing outreach. The new collections offered by Norcross reflect the varying looks a hotel might have. The Albert collection, for instance, comes with a high-back chair and a simple two-drawer desk. The Anne collection, on the other hand, comes with a pinkish headboard and chair. The designs offered by the company stay up to date with modern styles yet have a close correlation with a residential look, Norcross said. “(Guests) want to see or experience something that they enjoy at home or in their day-to-day life,” he added. Expansive luxury Baltin said the definition of luxury today is broader than what it used to be when all luxury hotels were much the same in appearance. “That is not the case anymore and you can now get more a modern feel, you can get a more Mediterranean feel, you can get a more Asian feel,” Baltin said. “It is wide variety of looks today in luxury hotels.” The materials that Norcross uses in making its products is as varied as the products themselves. The solid woods come in beech, walnut or ash, for instance, while the veneers can come in a hundred different varieties. The company works a lot in metals – copper, brass, and chrome, among others – and in stone tops of, say, Carrera marble or black granite. There are glass tops made as well with different mirrored or colored glass and custom-made hardware, such as the handles and knobs for the desks, dresser and nightstands. “We have done some Lucite pieces, so it’s a clear-looking material,” he added. Norcross furniture caters to guest needs by offering plenty of outlets and connections for plugging in laptops and mobile devices. “The clients are expecting that,” Norcross said. “It has to be user friendly on that front.”

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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