NEWH - Fall 2013 - (Page 44)

Cover Story Next Generation By Kelly Hushin Photography courtesy of Summer Classics Contract Summer Classics Contract ushers in a new standard for outdoor furniture Bew White Leslie Temples One of the most surprising things Leslie Temples learned when joining Summer Classics Contract was how many companies are not designing or manufacturing the outdoor furnishings they sell. “What happens in the outdoor market is there are an awful lot of people who are great shoppers,” says Temples, a hospitality industry veteran and the senior vice president of Summer Classics Contract. “They will get on a plane, go to the Far East— whether it’s China or Indonesia or Malaysia—and they’ll buy already made furniture.” Even more shocking to discover was that often, designers did not know that the product they were specifying was made for residential use, and rarely passed a 30,000 double rub test. At best, it included a UV coating on the fabric—but nothing else that would qualify it as an outdoor, contract-ready furnishing. The fact is, as Temples learned, very few companies who offer outdoor furniture started in the contract business: most started in residential. Given that on most hospitality spec sheets, outdoor is like, “Star Trek, the Final Frontier,” as Temples calls it, it is not surprising that so few companies are manufacturing their outdoor offerings. But as outdoor environments become more 44 www.newh.org Matt Scallions important to hospitality design, the tide is beginning to change. In the last 18 months, the changing F&B trends have made outdoor furnishings a hot topic in the hospitality sector, according to Temples and her executive team. Posing a stark contrast to her fi nal frontier analogy, Temples says that Summer Classics is poised to be the “next generation” of outdoor furnishings; taking the idea of furniture built for contract specifications to heart. When Temples started working with Summer Classics, the company’s owner, Bew White, gave her the reigns to “do her thing.” He knew that she had as good a grip as anyone on the hospitality market, and that she would be able to teach Summer Classics about a segment it was just beginning to gain ground in. Little did White know that his hospitality efforts were already paying off immensely, without having put forth a concerted effort to gain market share. “When I was interviewing, I was pretty shocked at the level of success they had achieved,” remembers Temples. “They didn’t know what they didn’t know.” Temples credits this organic success to Summer Classics’ products: their superior quality and design is thanks to White’s focus on delivering an utterly unique product since the day the http://www.newh.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEWH - Fall 2013

NEWH - Fall 2013
Table of Contents
News
Who’s Who
Sustainability
Conference Roundup
Q&A: Julia Marks
Q&A: Scott Pope
Icon of Industry
Have You Seen?
Product Know How
On the Scene
Cover Story
Project: A Bar
Project: Trademark
Save the Date
New Members
Partner Profiles
Ad Index

NEWH - Fall 2013