Today’s Home retools for the next generation

New management, new store design make for bold early statement

PITTSBURGH — Today’s Home is reinventing itself for today’s shoppers and shopping habits, with moves that include new leadership and new investments in technology, store design and other work to remain relevant and on top in this changing business climate.

Over the past year or so, the one-store upper midpriced to high-end retailer has installed an all-female leadership team, ages 38 and younger, the kind best suited to speak to the Instagram Generation. That includes Rachel Lenchner, 30, third-generation operator and director of marketing and design. 

And while the coronavirus pandemic caused a slight hiccup in some plans, a full refresh of the store exterior is now complete and interior work is well under way.

“It’s all part of the strategic long-term plan that’s now coming together,” said CEO Jeff Lenchner. While he’s holding onto that “chief” title, Lenchner, along with wife and longtime merchandiser Jill Lenchner and Chief Financial officer Brian Rice “are now on the bench as coaches and mentors,” the company said. 

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The new leaders, in addition to Rachel, are Chief Operating Officer Alyssa Carter, 38 (COO is basically the same as a president’s role at Today’s Home, said Jeff Lenchner); Director Merchandising Whitney Wagner, 33, and Director of TH Trade Kaitlin Holloway, 30.

“It’s now time for Rachel and Alyssa’s team to take this into the next 70 years,” Jeff Lenchner told Home News Now.  “At some point, for a company to grow and be progressive, you have to allow the next set of bright individuals to take hold and direct the ship their way. That’s how my parents handled it with my generation, and we’ve learned a lesson from that.”

Lenchner said the new team already has made “a tremendous difference in our business model and they’re more than capable of running the business. But we’re here as needed.”

Founded in Pittsburgh in 1953 by Jeff Lenchner’s parents Sigmund and Audrey Lenchner, Today’s Home has experienced periods of expansion, then contraction, then growth again. But one thing that hasn’t changed and won’t change with its latest turns is the company’s core competency — design and focus on high-quality goods. 

“That’s something we never really wavered from — our design process my parents really pioneered in the 1950s,” he said. The founders created a “Step-by-Step Design” concept to help customers with home renovations made over time. And it takes a whole-home approach with its own window treatments company, its own flooring company. 

“We don’t use third parties for anything in the design process, so it’s a total comprehensive approach to the design of your home,” he said. 

While Lenchner was watching many in the company’s peer group fall by the wayside over time — think Plunkett Furniture and Homestead House, for instance — Today’s Home stuck to its core competency and has been able to navigate all the changes in consumer spending over the years. 

But it hasn’t been without tweaks and reinventions along the way. In 2000, for instance, under Jeff Lenchner’s leadership, the company created Designer Furniture Outlet to leverage luxury closeouts for those consumers looking for high-quality but at bargain prices. A few years later, it added TH Trade Design, a designer trade showroom that serves more than 120 independent designers and architects; and TH Trade Contract, which takes the company’s design experience into the commercial furnishings realm with clients in various specialty areas including healthcare, education, corporate and hospitality.  

Transition and reinvention are under way again with the next-gen leadership as well as a new store design developed by the late Martin Roberts of Martin Roberts Design. For years, Today’s Home was known for its iconic traditional facade, with a row of blue arches and white glazed brick. In the 1970s, the retailer became the nation’s first Drexel Heritage stores, and that traditional facade was adopted and used by the high-end brand on more than 100 stores nationwide, Lenchner said.

It was a design from the 1950s that Today’s Home put to use at all locations back when there were more than one. And it’s a look that hasn’t changed much over decades until now. “But after 68 years, 69 years going on 70, we knew we had to modernize the look,” he said. “That’s when we called Martin Roberts,” a designer Lenchner called “legendary,” known for his work not only in home furnishings but across various retail segments and across the country.

The exterior change to the 60,000-square-foot Greentree Road store is dramatic. While the series of archways remain, they’re muted and more subtle. The store logo is updated, too, with a gable over the “m” in “home,” turning it into a house. The old blue color is gone now, replaced by a rich black carried on the ends of the facade and across canopies that highlight certain core and specialty areas: mattresses, furniture, rugs and design.

Modernization of the interior is under way now, as Today’s Home moves to improve traffic flow and visual display.

“I would say we’re moving to more of an open concept rather than separate rooms,” Rachel Lenchner told HNN. “That means maybe some walls come down to make things flow better, because open concepts in homes these days are much more popular than closed-offed separate rooms.” The work should be completed in about six months.

In a release, Today’s Home COO Carter noted the company’s infrastructure and technology investments enable it  “to act now and grow to win in the long term.” She mentioned how the retailer has reinvented the shopping experience with a store that features beautifully designed room settings and “world-famous brands like Bernhardt, Hooker, Bradington-Young, Century, American Leather, Natuzzi, and Canadel.” Other key sources include Rowe, Sherrill, Hancock & Moore and in bedding Serta, Beautyrest and White Dove, the latter a 100-year-old Cleveland-based producer specializing in mid- to high-end mattresses.

The company also has overhauled its operating systems and websites for the four businesses: Today’s Home, Designer Furniture Outlet, TH Trade Contract and TH Trade Design. Jeff Lenchner declined to disclose the investment in the remodel and systems and website upgrades, except to say it was “north of six figures,” and “We spent an awful lot of money during this pandemic modernizing our approach inside and out.”

It felt like a huge risk at the time, he said. With the lockdown and the store closed for 60 days until mid-May, “we thought we were heading into the abyss.” 

“We made the (renovation) decision well before we knew the home furnishing industry was going to get a massive bump post-COVID closings.”

That Gut check aside, the timing turned out to be pretty perfect. The retailer made a lot of progress on the design while the store was closed and has enjoyed the industry-wide surge ever since. Lenchner said it’s been “shockingly busy,” and while he wouldn’t disclose sales figures, he said business is up more than 30% this year to date even when counting two months with a dark store.

“And we anticipate staying at that level by yearend,” he added. 

“Are we borrowing business? I’m sure we are borrowing some business, but I think there’s a lot of life yet in the current growth spurt the industry is seeing. We certainly see it continuing through the first quarter of next year. 

The investment in the store rebrand and systems followed the, perhaps, more significant investment in the retailer’s Millennial management team, a move, it said, “that has enabled Today’s Home to understand and focus on the company’s new ideal client:  a busy 35-year-old woman, pushing with a family, who cares intensely about her home and likes to share photos on social media.

“She’s looking for a taste of the good life, and she just so happens to control the buying process when it comes to big-ticket buys.”

Rachel Lenchner said the company is staying current, embracing new talent and ways of getting heard. Among other things, it’s more active and focused on social media channels these days, and is  “seeing more engagement from young consumers, and making it easier to connect with customers.”

Her past experience in that field has come in handy, as she spent several years working in digital marketing for jeweler David Yurman in New York before joining the family business in 2014. She started as a designer, then moved into more of a marketing and social media role before blending the roles into her newest position about a year ago.

Her father appears as excited about the changes afoot as Rachel and the rest of the new leadership team.

“What’s fun for us, with our 70th anniversary on the horizon, is not looking at the past but looking forward,” he said. 

“Our survival and success has always been about progressive change so we can enhance our offerings, make our communities better, and create an exceptional environment for the next 70 years for our customers and employees.”

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