by Manufacturing assets include an upholstery plant in Morganton and a cut-and-sew operation in Mexico
HIGH POINT — About to enter its sixth year of operations, upholstery manufacturer Stone & Leigh aims to fill a void in the marketplace with a North American manufacturing and sourcing model it says offers customers a value at middle price points.
The company operates a 75,000-square-foot cut-and-sew operation in Yucatan, Mexico, a former Broyhill facility it purchased in a bankruptcy proceeding of former Broyhill parent Heritage Home Group. It produces cut-and-sew kits from fabrics sourced in North America and Asia.
The company also leases a 125,000-square-foot former EJ Victor plant in Morganton, North Carolina, that produces upholstery with these cut-and-sew kits. That facility also has a 75,000-square-foot warehouse/distribution facility.
Combined, these facilities today employ 450, including 300 in Mexico and 150 in North Carolina.
By producing the cut-and-sew kits in Mexico, the company is able to import fabrics from China into Mexico tariff-free which in turned are shipped to the North Carolina plant each week. The company also sends back fabrics produced in the U.S. to Mexico, creating a value-added supply chain featuring both imported and domestic raw materials.
“We have some really strong operating assets,” said Darryl Webster, president and chief operating officer at Stone & Leigh and a former 13-year veteran of Williams-Sonoma, where he ran the company’s Sutter Street manufacturing segment and also was the vice president of global sourcing. He has been with Stone & Leigh since December 2020.
“The nice thing is with fabric originating in China, it goes directly down to our Mexico facility and is converted to cut-and-sew covers and they come back into the U.S. without the tariff on it because of the value added in Mexico,” Webster said. “So that’s a huge advantage. It gives us a good cost advantage.”
The logistics of operating in Mexico also is a big advantage, especially given the quick turnaround times, said Steve Wolfe, senior vice president of supply chain operations.
“The order process is simple — we send them the order and they make it in one week,” Wolfe said. “It’s then on a container and takes a week to come up and we reload that container going back down with domestic fabrics and other raw materials that need to go back down to Mexico. So it’s a very, very smooth transition.”
Having produced fabrics for former Heritage Home brands including Thomasville, Drexel Heritage, Broyhill and Lane, the Mexico facility has years of experience and the capabilities to produce for a wide mix of products, including legacy Broyhill products that Stone & Leigh acquired design rights to — as well as new Stone & Leigh products, which make up much of the mix. It also has some products built off of a library of 35-40 years’ worth of Broyhill designs it acquired with its purchase of that intellectual property.
With the North American-produced kits, the company builds sofas, loveseats, chairs and sectionals at the North Carolina plant, which does everything from producing frames to upholstering the finished product in-house.
“We have two routers in house, so we produce all our frames internally, and everything is made to order as you can imagine,” Webster said. “We have really put in place made-to-order capability down in Mexico and given the time frame that Steve outlined in terms of when we give them a work order and when we get it back, we’re doing made-to-order upholstery for our customers with low-cost kits.”
He added that the turnaround on orders is about four weeks, another key capability — speed to market — that dealers value especially given the holes left on floors with the demise of Klaussner and Lane in the past 10 months.
Given the value equation with Mexico-sourced fabric and the years of experience of many Stone & Leigh employees who came over from Broyhill, the company believes it offers a strong value proposition at the middle price points with sofas retailing from $999 to $1,499. While most of its product is in fabric, it also offers leather, which comprises about 25% of its sales. These kits also are produced in Mexico.
“Our price points are very competitive compared to Klaussner’s and having a domestic supplier who can produce made-to-order upholstery at those price points is really resonating with customers,” Webster said.
And while the line is primarily stationary, the company also plans to expand its motion offerings in the near future, offering an even wider mix of product similar to that offered by both the former Lane and Klaussner lines.
“We are looking at motion on our product road map because that was an area where Klaussner was very, very, successful,” Webster said, noting that it offers similar styles to what companies like Klaussner were offering. “And right now, there’s a void in the marketplace. We are working very hard to try and fill that void and grow our business. We feel like we are very well positioned to do that.”
The company has even hired about eight people laid off because of the recent closing of Mitchell Gold, including production managers, upholsterers and receiving professionals. It also has hired five former Klaussner sales reps, who the company said have significant retail experience.
“They have significantly increased our territories and reach,” Wolfe said. “Their existing retail partnerships and product knowledge is already helping to drive growth and fill some of the open space left by the Klaussner shutdown.”
At market the company is showing its new and existing design footprints in a temporary space on the first floor at the Atrium on Main at 430 S. Main St.
It is launching eight new upholstery groups this market along with 75 new fabrics and leathers. In addition, it is launching its Custom Choices program, which offers three arm styles (roll, track and slope) as well as fabric, leather and slipcovers in different products across its line.
