By Roy L. Williams
The Birmingham News
MONTEVALLO — William Bew White III has a lofty goal for the family business he founded in 1978: He wants to make Montevallo-based Summer Classics “the Ralph Lauren of outdoor furniture.”
White seems to be on his way. The company’s outdoor furniture line — which includes table and chair sets that cost $4,000 or more — is sold in 48 states and several foreign countries. Through retailers such as Williams-Sonoma and Restoration Hardware, sales are projected to reach $60 million this year and $76 million in 2015, up from $20 million just four years ago.
At that pace, White says the $100 million sales mark will soon be eclipsed.
“This is an incredible business that started from nothing,” he said. “We’ve grown it with people that believe in the business model and take ownership as if it were their own business.”
More growth is planned. White intends to open a large showroom in a high-profile spot along Interstate 459 in the Birmingham area, adding to the 11 the company already operates in places such as Huntsville, Gulf Shores, Nashville, Tenn., Charlotte, N.C., and San Antonio.
Besides its Summer Classics showroom in Pelham, area independent stores carrying its products include Blackjack Gardens in Birmingham, Verandah Garden Furniture and East Gate Gallery of Tuscaloosa.
Next year, Summer Classics will expand its focus with an indoor line called Summer Classics Home and with holiday accessories called Christmas Classics.
Rob Robinson, the company’s director of advertising, said Summer Classics operates on the principle that classic design — no matter how simple or elaborate — will have a long-lasting appeal. An illustration of how this has paid off can be found in Summer Classics’ furniture line bearing the name of the Biltmore Estate, the mansion built by George Vanderbilt in North Carolina in 1895.
As the Biltmore Estate searched for a manufacturer to produce a brand of outdoor furniture bearing its name, it settled on the Montevallo company, said Timothy Rosebrock, general manager of Biltmore Licensed Consumer Products.
“Our interviews and comparisons left us with a single conclusion: No one does it better than Summer Classics,” he said.
For White, whose family was involved in creating the Alabama textile industry dynasty that operated Avondale Mills, the business is a global venture. Much of the production is done in China, India, Thailand, Indonesia and Mexico, the very places where much of the U.S. textile industry has migrated for cheaper labor.
In manufacturing, White said, the most effective business model “is to bring product in and get it back out as efficiently as possible.”
Summer Classics officials say they try to do as much business in the United States as possible. Its home office, sewing and warehouse and operations in Montevallo employ 200 people.
The company buys fabric for cushions from U.S. apparel mills including Burlington, N.C.-based Glen Raven, which owns the Sunbrella brand, White said.
“We buy millions of dollars of fabric per year, and design and color it on our own,” White said. “It is somehow odd that I am back in the fabric business and that Glen Raven bought much of the equipment that Avondale sold when they closed.”
Avondale Mills was founded in Sylacauga by White’s great-grandfather, Braxton Bragg Comer, and it became a giant. The family sold the maker of denim, yarn and other textile products in the early 1980s.
“I wouldn’t be here without what my great-grandfather did at Avondale Mills,” said the 56-year-old White. “I wanted to do what he did for me — leave a company legacy for my grandkids.”
Today, even as Summer Classics takes off, Sylacauga is struggling to cope with the departure of Avondale, which shut down last year, eliminating 1,000 jobs.
As a young man, White dreamed of working for the family enterprise. His father, Bew White II, was a founding partner of Birmingham’s Bradley Arant Rose & White law firm, but he studied textile engineering at Auburn University.
He moved to New York in 1972 and spent five years as a sales representative for Avondale, marketing its textiles to high-end outdoor furniture brands. He returned to Alabama in 1977 to start his own company.
He formed Vista Corp. as a manufacturer’s representative, selling lifestyle furniture to retailers across the United States. In 1981, he began to concentrate on outdoor furniture, focusing sales efforts on Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas. In tandem with Vista, White started The Base Co. in 1983 to sell colored plastic umbrella bases to patio shops across the United States.
In 1986, unable to find the type of outdoor furniture he wanted for his personal use, White began to buy parts and assemble products such as Adirondack-style chairs, outdoor planters, benches and other furniture.
That was the beginning of what is now known as Summer Classics.
Since adopting that name 11 years ago, White’s company has expanded its line from painted wooden furniture, market umbrellas and umbrella bases to a diverse product offering that includes wrought iron, wrought aluminum, weatherproof wicker, cast aluminum and other assorted garden furniture pieces.
The company now offers over 200 products in a wide variety of colors and styles. Its retail customers have included Neiman Marcus, Horchow, Crate & Barrel and Smith & Hawken. The bulk of its business comes from independent retailers and company-owned stores.
Robinson, the company’s advertising director, says one element that sets Summer Classics apart from rivals is its internal design department. At the helm is White, who works with the designers to keep the company’s products fresh. The team includes senior designer Robert Taunton, an Auburn graduate who uses a computer to forward designs to workers at the China manufacturing facility.
Richard Wright, editor of Hearth & Home magazine, which has given awards to Summer Classics, said White has been smart enough to assemble a talented team.
“Together they consistently create outdoor furnishings of timeless design and exciting color,” Wright said.
Richard Ogle, vice president of operations, said he and other executives make monthly trips to China to make sure the items being produced there meet company standards.
Ogle said making its products overseas has allowed Summer Classics to keep much of its business in Alabama.
Its Montevallo sewing facility, for example, produces between 20,000 and 23,000 made-to-order cushions each month that cannot be supplied from China.
The Montevallo sewing and warehouse operations were housed in Columbiana until a fire destroyed the building there in 2004.
The sewing operations provide needed jobs in an industry struggling to survive, Ogle said.
“The reality is many U.S. manufacturers are going out of business,” Ogle said. “We have hired almost every cut and sew technician who lost their job from Healthtex in Centerville, and we have hired some key people from Russell Mills in Alexander City.”
White said he wants to live up to the family legacy.
“Although I am not sure what B.B. Comer had in mind when he started Avondale, so many people benefited from its existence,” he said. “I hope I can provide a fraction of that benefit.”
