by 2nd-generation business looks back on its 50 years of ownership this year and prepares for the 125th anniversary of the brand in 2025
MANLIUS, N.Y. — In celebrating its 50th anniversary this year under the ownership of the Audi family, L. & J.G. Stickley has reached a milestone that’s elusive for many companies both in and outside the industry.
The family has reached this milestone through what has evolved into a diversified business strategy that includes not only its core manufacturing operations in the U.S. and overseas but also its network of 14 retail stores in six states.
It’s a model that is a far cry from the business that Alfred and Aminy Audi purchased in 1974 from Louise Stickley, the widow of Leopold Stickley and a longtime friend of Alfred’s father E.J. Audi. At that time, the company had a plant in Fayetteville, New York, that employed about 25 workers. Despite the best efforts of that team, it struggled both financially and operationally as it often had difficulty meeting customer demand.
When the Audis purchased the company, bankruptcy, in fact, appeared imminent. But Louise Stickley knew that she had an able and willing steward of the brand in Alfred Audi, who at the time was running a longtime Manhattan Stickley dealer started by his father in 1928 called E.J. Audi Fine Furniture.
Edward Audi, president, credits his mother and father’s dedication for turning the company around.
“I think Stickley likely would have gone the way of so many other fine names in our industry that while they had a wonderful run, came to an end,” he said. “Mrs. Stickley, when she called my father, she recognized his passion and belief in the product. And she said it exactly that way: “You are the only one who loves it enough and understands it enough to keep the quality.”
Indeed, Alfred Audi, who died in 2007, had the passion for the brand to make it work. Yet from the start, the task was especially daunting.
“When I first walked through that old plant in Fayetteville, I literally cried,” Mrs. Audi said in an oral history for the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame. “It smelled of decay, there was nothing going on. There were very few people working, and a very small amount of product going through. There were cobwebs everywhere and no aspect of life, but my husband was in love. I mean he truly was in love with the product; he was in love with a building that had a leaky roof. That’s why they say love is blind. We bought the business in 1974. The early years were very tough years. The odds in our industry were one in 10 we would even make it.”
Aminy Audi recalls the many hurdles that were there from the start. This ranged from the recruitment and nurturing of manufacturing talent to maintain the high standards of the brand, to managing the financial side of the business, including meeting payroll and purchasing raw materials such as lumber.
“All that was a challenge at the beginning,” she recalled to Home News Now during its plant visit in mid-September, noting that she sometimes had to remove hardware from her own dressers to ship a bedroom suite with the complete hardware. “Funds were not so abundant in the early years. … But fortunately, we had very good working relationships with the banks, with our lumber suppliers and we were able to meet all of our commitments.”
The couple worked countless hours to revive the company, with Alfred largely on the operations side and Aminy on the marketing and merchandising side, handling everything from communications with dealers to positioning of the brand.
Aminy Audi describes the early years as being in survival mode, noting that “anything that needed to be done, we had to do.”
It was that dedication and ultimate success that also led them each to be inducted into the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, Alfred J. Audi in 2008 and Aminy I. Audi in 2015.
“Stickley in Central New York was so lucky that Mom and Dad were there as a team,” Edward Audi said of their complementary skill sets. “A lot needed to go right. And it was not just their hard work. There was a little bit of good timing and luck along the way. But I just marvel at the amount of passion and skill combined and how complementary their skill set was.”
But there was something else that contributed to their success: the loyalty and passion of Stickley customers all over.
“We realized that the loyalty of the Stickley customer is unmatched,” Aminy Audi said, adding that the financial institutions also were supportive. “We had a lot of things coming together. They saw that we were very serious about what we were doing and that we were investing everything back into the business and that we were creating jobs.”
The investments materialized into product ranging from its revival of Mission in 1989 to its 2000 collaboration with Colonial Williamsburg on the Williamsburg Reserve Collection. The company also has grown through acquisitions including the John Widdicomb Co. in 2002 and Nichols & Stone in 2008.
Through such development and growth initiatives, the goal always has been to carry forward the legacy of Gustav and Leopold Stickley and other family members that were involved in the creation of the brand which dates back to 1900 and thus will be celebrating its 125th anniversary next year.
“At Stickley, we are keenly aware and justifiably proud of the legacy generated by the Stickley family,” Aminy Audi is quoted as saying on one of the displays in the Stickley Museum in Fayetteville, New York, the former site of the original 137,000-square-foot Stickley factory, that also houses the town library. “Our goal is not merely to continue that legacy, but to enhance it, constantly looking for new and creative ideas in our ongoing quest for excellence.”
Adds Edward Audi in a quote directly below, “What has never changed is the dedication to quality, honest materials and craftsmanship that has defined Stickley since its founding.”
The quality and construction story is further described in the museum on displays illustrating its time-honed furniture building methods ranging from tongue-and-groove glue joinery and shiplap planking to dovetail drawers and quadrilinear posts that consist of four quarter-sawn oak boards mitered and glued around a center post. The display goes on to explain processes such as the selection of raw materials to the milling of lumber.
Home News Now also saw the manufacturing process first-hand during a tour of the company’s now 400,000-square-foot-plus case goods plant in Manlius, courtesy of Tom Graham, manager of quality control. Having been through as many as nine expansions since the company first began operations there in 1985, the Manlius headquarters operation now employs about 380 workers, as many as 60% of which are in manufacturing, including engineers and supervisors.
Altogether, including its Archdale, North Carolina, upholstery plant that opened in 1995 and its 14 retail stores, the company employs 546 in the U.S., a far cry from the 25 when the Audis first purchased the company.
Since around 1981, the company also has employed thousands of refugees from around the world in its domestic operations — today there are about 23 countries represented, according to company HR officials — giving those workers opportunities they likely wouldn’t have had in their home countries. It’s a testament to the altruistic nature of the Audis who hired their first refugee in response to their local pastor mentioning that the father of a family was in need of work. Alfred and Aminy Audi responded immediately and gave the man a job.
“It’s allowed them to rebuild and build for future generations,” Edward Audi said of the program.
With many of the workers being from Vietnam, the program allowed these individuals to return to that country in the mid-2000s when Stickley opened its Vietnam case goods plant. Collectively those individuals were able to train workers in the new plant while also reconnecting with family members who were still living there.
The Vietnam plant caused a stir when it first opened as Stickley was a petitioner supporting an anti-dumping case domestic manufacturers filed on Chinese-made wooden bedroom furniture. By opening an overseas plant that made the same type of low-cost product as China, industry observers said the company was essentially operating counter to the goal of the petition, which was to preserve American jobs.
Edward Audi said he also was initially wary of the plant given that many customers associate Stickley quality and construction with U.S. made. But he also came to agree with his father that it also would help both complement and sustain the company’s domestic operations.
“When we were contemplating Vietnam, I said to my father, ‘You know, we’re going to get so much grief. We’re a made-in-America company and now we’re putting up a plant in Vietnam.’” And he said to me ‘Son, people are going to buy product from overseas. They are going to want imported product. Do you think they would rather buy from someone they don’t know or someone that they know and trust?’ I came around and he couldn’t have been more right in that. ‘In the long run, it gives us more options. It gives us the ability to support our domestic plant because we have a foundation from which we can do anything.’ I thought that was a wonderful way of looking at it.”
He also noted that the company continues to make more than 90% of its product mix domestically, an overall estimate that includes both upholstery and case goods. That said, some of its popular collections including Walnut Grove — the No. 2 selling collection in the line — and Pasadena Bungalow, are made in Vietnam.
But the company also is committed to its domestic operations, given the quality and speed to market that it represents both on the upholstery and case goods sides of the business. The company even offers customizable starting-priced product in its Origins upholstery and case goods collections at its U.S. facilities with the wood produced in Manlius and the upholstery made in Archdale, just outside of High Point.
Its diversity in manufacturing also further enhances its ability to design newer collections beyond its core Arts and Crafts and Mission design aesthetics including Martine, Maidstone and Walnut Grove to name a few.
“Made-in-America matters and certainly lead times matter,” Edward Audi said of the domestic operations and the jobs, value and speed to market those facilities offer. “I think everyone has their own opinion on it. As a buyer, I would appreciate product domestically as well as imported product that’s a great value. … Do I think that there is a handful of customers that don’t buy it because it’s not made in America? I am sure that is the case out there somewhere, but we are proud of our roots here and we are proud of all of our facilities. And most of all the way we treat people as family in those facilities.”
Adds Aminy Audi, “I think there is a place for both. There is a place for the domestic product, and we are very proud of that. And there is a place for the international. I don’t think that one necessarily negates the other or takes the place of the other. The world is competitive and if people feel they want to have the American-made product, there is plenty of that. There is something for everybody here.”
For a video interview with Aminy and Edward Audi, click the link below.
