Raleigh Loses Porto Furniture

Maybe Raleigh just isn’t ready for high-end furniture as some readers have stated. Cherry left Cameron Village over a month ago and now Porto in North Hills has closed its doors.

Porto seemed to span between the Old World and the Modern aesthetic, many times allowing the variety and choice that Carlton and Company claims. They also encouraged local artists to show and sell art in their store and had openings at various points throughout the year.

Porto had locations in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. It offered hand-crafted furniture made by companies that it said practiced environmental sustainability.

But amid a local slump in residential housing and a general economic slowdown, it became too difficult to keep the store’s doors open, owners Michael Perry and Emily Barret said in a statement.

The stores are closed but will fulfill all special orders, a statement says.

Triangle Business Journal has the full story.

Magnus06/13 11:24 PM

Maybe their products were just too expensive. Anything in North Hills seems to be automatically padded with a location premium.

Kurt S.06/14 06:15 PM

If only the quality of the furniture had matched the price tags. Placing a 4 digit price tag on a poorly constructed and finished import doesn’t make it fine furniture. I liked the store, I like the people who ran it, but reality won.

Jason M. Sullivan06/15 01:29 PM

You do read your own copy, right? The quote you picked from the story goes like this…

“But amid a local slump in residential housing and a general economic slowdown, it became too difficult to keep the store’s doors open, owners Michael Perry and Emily Barret said in a statement.“

Doesn’t sound like “Raleigh’s not ready” so much as a general slowdown in durable goods purchases locally (especially on expensive luxury items that make a statement in some intangible manner: “environmental sustainability”).

You’re making it sound like a taste issue, but it sounds like the only way taste enters the equation is that I can’t eat a $5000 couch.

JZ06/15 03:02 PM

If Lamborghini can open a showroom in Greensboro, then there’s no shortage of dollars for non-traditional furniture. I presume, however, that those who like their cars unique and an reflection of the most contemporary forward-thinking technologies and design, actually like the opposite when it comes to their home environments. These are the same folk who crave the newest iPhone the latest in trendy clothing but want a big poofy couch with ruffles for their family room.

Regardless if my stereotyping is correct or not, I’ve had this conversation for years with people: Between high-end non-traditional (i.e. Knoll, Cassina, etc. as offered by Cherry) and low-end non-traditional (i.e. IKEA) there really isn’t anything in the mid-range.

In a state that has its own furniture manufacturing base (albeit a dwindling one), we’re at a peculiar advantage to hit that neglected niche. Perhaps why nobody has filled the gap is simply because there’s no money in it.

Jason M. Sullivan06/15 03:35 PM

I’d like to meet all the people in G’bo buying Lambo’s. I bet I could do it in less than an afternoon.
Four figure furniture aims itself at a different market than six figure automobiles. If you’re comparing the two, than it’s certainly not the tastes of Raleigh citizens (as was implied) that led to the store closing, but the inability of the store to market itself to a wider geographical area. The next closest Lambo dealer is Atlanta.

That’s where and why the comparison falls flat, of course (that, and the fact the people with Lambos on their buy list are less affected by economic downturns than the rest of us). Why hasn’t anyone mentioned Ecko or Nowell’s in this thread? Do we only miss the unsuccessful modernist furniture stores?

JZ06/15 04:28 PM

I concur with the fact that Cherry or Porto possibly never capitalizd on better geographic marketing. And I never meant to imply that somehow Greensboro possessed a capitive audience for exotic automobile imports.

But the person that chooses to drive to Greensboro to get buy a car a) may already be a Raleigh resident or b) may also be willing to drive to Raleigh for domestic needs.

So, I think its a bit of both, a lack of being able to market to broader base AND a lack of non-traditional interest.

A 5k sofa is kind of midrange, actually. I don’t see many of those with non-traditional construction, however, because the detailing of non-traditional furniture can be more painstaking. Connections are typically exposed rather than concealed behind upholstry or trim.

Ecko’s products generally are upscale knockoffs of IKEA or a 1980s post-modernist has-been designer, IMO. Their higher prices reflect their capability to persuade the nouveau riche to part with their savings on products only just slightly better than what one could buy at IKEA.

Jerry Nowell06/16 02:02 PM

As the owner of Nowell’s Furniture, let me first thank Jason Sullivan for mentioning us. I, too, am puzzeled as to why we aren’t mentioned more often. I don’t want to turn this into a sales pitch—which I think would be inappropriate in this forum—but we were the very first all-contemporary furniture store in North Carolina (founded in 1905, we moved to an all-contemporary format in 1968), and I’d like to think that we still do a pretty good job of it. We offer a wide range of price-points and designs, from classic mid-century modern, to transitional, to the most progressive recent designs. The problem, I think, is that the cost of reaching potential buyers of this type of merchandise is almost prohibitivly high. I have a 20,000 square foot showroom in a building I own. Our location is not the best, but the same size showroom in North Hills (if such a space were available)would cost me at least $40,000 a month. So I’ve chosen to stay where we are and spend 200,000 dollars a year on advertising. And still, not a week goes by that I don’t run into someone who says they have never heard of us. There is a market in the Raleigh area, no doubt about it, but getting the potential consumers together with the retailers who want to supply this type of pruduct is very difficult.

Magnus06/16 02:05 PM

Jerry - Sorry to give you another paper cut, but I’ve never heard of you, either. Not sure where the $200K is going but it’s not reaching me in north Raleigh. My wife is shopping for a sofa, too, so we’re looking!

Jerry Nowell06/16 02:45 PM

Further to the above point, it is much easier for a disgruntled customer to damage the reputation of a business than for a business to get positive messages out to potential customers. For example, if you go to citysearch, you’ll find seven reviews of my store, 5 of which are good and 2 bad. The first bad review is from 2004, the second is from last January. We have served in excess of 10,000 customers during that time. Most have been satisfied (5 of whom went online to say so), some were not (2 of whom went online to trash us). If this were an accurate reflection of our performance—if 30% of our customers were as profoundly unhappy as these two people—we would have tanked years ago. Unfortunately, satisfied customers are much less likely to make the effort, so this sort of thing will almost always be skewed toward the negative. Since that first bad review in 2004, I’ve had no less than a dozen people ask me about it, specifically mentioning Citysearch. One person was candid enough to say she never did visit us because it raised concerns about the quality of our service. It breaks my heart to think of how many other people never gave us a chance, and never will, due to this. A couple of weeks ago, I personally drove to Chapel Hill to bring a bottle of teak oil to a customer because our men forgot to oil her new dining table at the time of delivery. We made a mistake, and we fixed it promptly with minimal inconvenience to our customer. She thanked me profusely, and said she was very impressed, but she didn’t post a review on Citysearch. Two disatisfied customers out of 10,000 can reach and influence more people than she ever will. What I’d encourage everyone to do is this: if you like a store, become an advocate. Go out of your way to spread the word. You can make a difference, and greatly increase the chances that your favorite store will still be in business the next time you visit.

Jerry Nowell06/17 07:20 PM

Magnus: We regularly advertise in the N&O;, Chapel Hill News, Durham Morning Herald, yellow pages, Independent, Metro Magazine, and Business Leader; we are occasionally in Elle Decor, Dwell and Met Home as part of Jesper Office and Ekornes national advertising campaigns; we do sponsorships on WUNC radio Monday-Friday; and, finally, we do direct mail about once a quarter. We are currently in the process of re-vamping our website. Any tips as to how I can better reach folks such as yourself? Give me a call and I’ll treat you to lunch for the opportunity to pick your brain—what do you say?

Magnus06/17 07:29 PM

Jerry: The nuts and bolts of it is I’m of the generation that gets their news for free online, so I don’t read any of those newspapers. Direct mail is so densely stacked it gets ignored. TV commercials that are catchy enough to make me not fast forward my DVR do get my attention. Annoying guys standing on the side of the road waving signs at me do not. I actually make a point of not patronizing businesses that do that.

Sponsoring a local interest web site like this one would probably get a lot of eyes that you are otherwise missing through the more traditional media outlets.

I don’t envy your dilemma. It is easy for consumers to avoid and ignore ads now. And the ads have gotten so obnoxious that we want to ignore them. But the only way to rise above them sometimes is to become even more obnoxious.

The WUNC sponsorship probably would have reached me 3 or 4 years ago. The iPod fixed that.

You’re really in a tough position trying to reach the younger generation. We’re getting really good at avoiding ads. Sponsoring web sites (and I don’t just mean banner ads, but meaningful partnership and participation in the community) is one of the effective ways of reaching guys like me. And I do tend to go out of my way to do business with the companies who think my favorite web sites are important enough to keep afloat.

Tahe Zalal06/21 01:51 PM

Funny that I’m just reading this now. I was just speaking to a friend this morning who said he sold his vintage tin mirrors at Porto and he never mentioned them closing. What’s also funny is that I live in Greensboro and I’m very familiar with Nowell’s and Ecko, probably from seeing ads in The Independent and Metro which I subscribe to, as well as Cherry which I’m sorry to see is gone. In downtown Greensboro, we have a fabulous modern furniture store called Area and I’ve run into friends from Raleigh. People are willing to travel out of their way for nontraditional furniture (or exotic cars). However, Area doesn’t carry $4000 sofas. Mark Hewett, proprietor of Area, offers beautiful and well-made furniture, much of which is made regionally, for reasonable prices. I think his sofas are all under $2000. Area has been opened for close to 10 years and somehow has managed to maintain a steady business. Mark hardly advertised until fairly recently and really only relied on word-of-mouth or foot traffic.

I’m sorry to hear about Porto closing. I thought the furniture and accessories were quite lovely and I don’t understand where Raleigh residents go to buy furniture. I saw Porto as a place for those who liked modern, traditional or contemporary. There was something for everyone, it seemed, although not for every pocketbook.

Paula06/26 03:59 PM

It comes to me as no surprise that Porto would be closing. They no doubt had nice furniture for those that were looking for nice mordern, contemporary furniture but they were just too overpriced. To make matters worse the quality of the furniture did not match up to the price.

Also, I think the main factor that drove the nail into the coffin for Porto was just poor customer service - they never got back to you on time as they were never on top of their game. Michael is a good interior designer but lacks the ability to give his customers progress reports on furniture order. After about 3 months when you call, thats when it so happens that he called the vendor. Also, if he told you he could deliver furniture within 3 - 4 weeks, be rest assured that you would still be waiting for that furniture to be delivered by the 11th month so poor planning on his part.

They seemed to undertake more than they could chew. He had no respect for his customers and thats why his store is closed today.

They lack they business acumen to be doing what they were doing. They should just remain interior designers and not bother with selling furniture.

JB06/28 03:58 PM

RE: Neowell’s
I went to look for you and got an under construction thing and I don’t mean to be harsh, but there’s no excuse for it.

I don’t mean to imply you’re not telling the truth, I can’t imagine that you can spend $200,000 on advertising and not have a site up. That’s insane. I know they say half of your advertising money is wasted, the trick is figuring out which half. In your case, it’s easy to say you’re wasting both halves.

If you don’t have a site up, I can’t imagine how you can be in business. Fire whatever ad agency stole your money. They’re robbing you. If you’re not working for professionals, hire an agency with a good rep and accept you can’t do it yourself.

Get your site up. Optimize it for searches. Sponsor discussions online. Buy ads online—especially Google search results with key terms. Get help. You can’t afford not to.

My wife and I have been looking for furniture for 3 years in this area and you never came up on any searches. This is your wake up call. I wish you success in the future.Getting online immediately, is simply the cost of doing business. Good luck.

Jerry Nowell06/28 06:41 PM

JB: Thanks for your input. We’ve had a website for over 8 years, and we’re now doing a total overhaul—should be back up in another week or two. Even with the placeholder,I just googled “contemporary furniture raleigh” and we were the 5th hit. “scandinavian furniture raleigh” brought us up at 4th. I don’t know why we’ve never shown up in your searches. I wish you luck finding furniture.

JB06/28 06:54 PM

Cut in “modern furniture raleigh” and you’re not even in the top 100.

“contemporary” usually connotes cheesey white leather sofas. Unless you have white leather sofas, in which case, lots of people love cheese. Kidding.

Jerry Nowell06/29 01:58 AM

You’re right. We suck. What was I thinking? I’m refunding the 3.6 million dollars our customers have spent with us over the last 12 months and killing myself on monday.

Rusty06/29 10:38 PM

I’m a little disappointed that more people in this thread haven’t heard of Nowell’s. Growing up in the area I can say for certain that Nowell’s was the only store I knew of that had anything modern (until relatively recently.)

Possibly living inside-the-beltline is another story… but there’s no need to get nasty about it. I don’t think one should necessarily use the terms “modern” and “contemporary” interchangeably, but saying that “contemporary” connotes cheesy white leather sofa’s is a bit of a stretch. Modernism as a cultural movement has had fits and starts many times over the past century, including many points at which it has been thought of as a dead movement by many in the art & architecture world.

I’m not saying they’re correct necessarily, but Modernism is more than an aesthetic. An awful lot of what is billed as Modern Furniture, or for that matter Modern Architecture does little or nothing to advance the art of building, or the act of dwelling in the way that Modernism supposedly set out to do.

cat06/30 05:37 PM

I have lived here for three years having moved here from San Francisco and I know all about Nowell’s and their incredible furniture. I don’t listen to the radio nor do I get a paper but I still was able to locate modern quality furniture very easily. I really don’t understand how you can look for furniture for three years and not have Nowell’s come up.

Magnus06/30 05:44 PM

The point may not have been made very elegantly, but it was made; Nowell’s does not at this time have a strong web presence, and does not come up high in any of the searches that I’ve tried.

The dreaded “under construction” site can kill you. Best to leave the old busted site up in many cases, work on the new site in the background, and then “flip the switch” to redirect people to the new site when it’s ready. Some of that advertising budget ought to probably go to SEO consultants that know what they’re doing to bring your visibility up on the web.

My wife is nagging me for a new sofa so we’ll certainly check the store out.

Jerry Nowell06/30 06:36 PM

Thanks, Magnus. That the old site came down before the new one could go up was not really by choice. It was the result of my failure to understand the implications of the fine print when I signed on with the previous developer and host: When I recently informed them that I didn’t want to renew the contract for their services, they informed me that the website was not, in fact, mine. They held the copyright. They pulled it and left me hanging. That won’t happen again.

mpd06/30 08:11 PM

Let’s be honest, if you have been looking for a sofa for three years and have not found it then you are NOT looking for a sofa. I appreciate that you say you are looking for one but you really have no plans to buy one. If you truly are looking to buy a sofa but haven’t in THREE YEARS then maybe making decisions is not one of your strengths, in which case, you need to speak to someone who knows furniture to help you out. You personify the type of person Jerry was speaking about who is more eager to criticize than compliment. You don’t stay in business for 100 yrs. if people don’t know about you.

brian_M06/30 11:10 PM

Personally, I have never looked up Nowell’s on the web. Here’s either a clue or something worthless: when I moved to town in 1993, a friend took me by there. And here’s the way I think of Nowell’s: I’ve made several trips over the years to IKEA up in Woodbridge to buy stuff for my house. When I had the money, I shopped for better stuff at Nowell’s. It’s funny that in another thread, computer desks were mentioned…because the one I’m typing on right now came from *ta-da!* Nowell’s. I also bought my dining room table there. The sales that are done there periodically are good ones…there are a lot of things there that I can’t afford, but as it stacks up, there are a lot of things that I can. So, it’s always been sort of an “in-the-know” Raleigh thing…I think a lot of other people have been turned onto the store via friends as well. I also think the location is fine, and probably has a lot to do with the place still being in existence. The website? I dunno…maybe. If somebody is going to buy furniture, they are going to want to see it in person. I can’t imagine the huge importance of one unless you are going to do e-commerce.

Melissa07/02 04:31 PM

I too was sad to hear about Porto going out of business. They also had a store here in Chapel Hill. I had purchased several items from them in the past. A friend of mine has recently told me about a brand new store here in Chapel Hill, which is actually just past the shopping center that Porto had been in. She had purchased a couple of chair and ottomans from them. They were very comfortable with a modern look to them. She told me the name of the store, Mitchells Home Studio, and highly recommended them to me. They were very helpful and patient. They are a small independently owned store, carrying almost exclusively, a line out of Norway called Ekornes. They are only a couple of months old so most people haven’t really heard of them yet. I don’t pay much attention to ads so I have probably missed seeing them, but I much rather prefer word of mouth. It means a lot more to me to hear it from someone I trust. I’m very happy my friend told me about them. They are worth checking out.

Margo07/13 01:59 PM

I’m not surprised Porto closed. I remember looking at a cabinet with over $2K price tag, and the movement of the hinges & drawer slides wasn’t very smooth. Even IKEA has some pieces with better hardware than that!

Rafael07/13 04:40 PM

Melissa,

Funny you mention Mitchells Home Studio. We had just been in town visiting family in Chapel Hill and went out shopping when we happened across Mitchells. What a wonderful surprise to us. We loved the Ekornes line and the owner and staff were amazing. We had personally never had someone be as courteous and helpful. His product knowledge was amazing and the patience that was shown to my wife and I trying to decide on our ottoman was greatly appreciated. Our family had been longtime Porto customers and I think we have shown them all that Mitchells has filled that void that Porto might have left.

Jerry Nowell07/13 06:25 PM

Having been the Triangle’s largest Ekornes Stressless chair dealer for over two decades, and the only one for the last few years, I frankly had mixed feelings last fall when I heard that a new dealer was coming to Chapel Hill. I visited shortly after they opened this spring, however, and was both impressed and releived. I agree with Rafael’s assesment of Shaun and Robin, the owners/staff. They are nice folks, with a strong work ethic and product knowledge. I can say this with confidence because I trained them myself when they worked at Nowell’s several years ago. That said, Mitchell’s is primarily an Ekornes gallery, with at least 90% of their showroom devoted to this single line. While there is every reason to believe that they will do a good job serving the growing demand for this product in the area, it is hard to imagine that they can fill the void left by Porto, or any other full-line, full-service furniture store. The void is both broader and deeper than this. Porto, like Nowell’s, sought to be one-stop shop for any and all home furnishings needs. It did so with a distinctive look and philosophy, bringing something unique to the marketplace. True, it serves Chapel Hill residents well to have the option of shopping for Ekornes in their own hometown, but the store essentially duplicates offerings already available in the Triangle. What it brings is greater convenience for people in Chapel Hill, but in terms of product, nothing really new. So, in my humble opinion, there is still something of a void left by Porto’s departure. However (caution: self-promotion ahead), I beleive it’s worth the drive from Chapel Hill if you need things for other areas of the home or office, or even if you just want to see a larger selection of recliners. In this regard, we carry everything Mitchell’s has, at the same prices (which are set by Ekornes), plus a wide variety of other recliners from Natuzzi, American Leather and KSL. So, Rafael, I’m sure you’ll be happy with your Ekornes purchase and that the Mitchell’s will treat you right, but please visit Nowell’s Contemporary Furniture in Cary when you have a need for bedroom, dining room, office, living room or home theater furniture.

Scott Shirk07/18 02:41 PM

I hate it that Porto is gone, we loved the store. I am sure with the choices availabe we will get our needs met elsewhere, but we really just loved the store.

Mr. Nowell, not sure why you are coming onto this post and using it as a platform for your own advertisement. I see about 7 posts you have made and over half include some sort of innuendos and advertisement pitch.

Jerry Nowell07/18 04:21 PM

Scott: The article that initiated this thread dealt with the local state of the industry of which I’m a part. I entered the discussion a month ago and have since made many substantive contributions that in no way promoted my own business. Along the way, however, it is true that I’ve also encouraged people to shop with us. Why? Because I’m proud of what we do, I’d like for people to visit us and share what I enjoy so much, and also—yes, I admit it—selling furniture is how I pay the bills and feed my kids. Regardless, it would be difficult to talk about one’s own industry without being somewhat self-referential. If you were a home builder (for example), and a particular line of discussion dealt with home building, it would neither surprise nor offend me if you referred to your own experiences, and did so in such a way that showed you were proud of your work, even to the point of inviting folks to consider hiring you. And, having read other posts in which people promoted their businesses—some honestly and directly (like Taz and myself), others anonymously, raving about a business while pretending that they are simply customers of, rather than the owners of, that particular business—it didn’t seem to be a breach of etiquette to do so. I didn’t think that the honest advocacy of my business would be offensive to anyone, and can’t quite see why it would be. The beauty of the internet is that one can easily navigate away from a thread of discussion that becomes boring or offensive. (BTW, don’t miss our tax-free weekend sale, next month!)

Brad08/25 05:08 PM

Just stumbled on this thread because I’m looking for more furniture stores. I can say that when I went in Porto, I was never impressed, and ‘used’ was more my feeling than ‘modern’ about what they carried. Just yesterday I went to Ambiente and Ecko. It’s hard for me to understand why Ecko is in business since their (relatively) small space is half given over to nick-and-dent items and their contemporary pieces seem to me no more original what than Crate and Barrel or Restoration Hardware have. That being said, I could go on for a long time about Ambiente. They have a huge space, great selection and what seems to be reasonable pricing. Now that I’ve found out that Nowell’s has modern pieces(pretty much thanks to this obscure thread) I’m looking forward to going there as well. I should add that I’m in the camp where a few good google adwords searches probably would have brought me to Nowell’s much sooner.

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Jedidiah Friday, June 13, 2008