Janice Feldman started Janus et Cie almost 30 years ago with the notion of bringing European design to the United States.
Now the former San Franciscan, who studied industrial design, is in West Hollywood and has opened several U.S. showrooms, including one recently in a corner of the Design Center Showplace in San Francisco.


“The company has doubled every year for the last few,” said Northwest territory manager Ginger Gumpertz.
She credits Feldman’s aesthetic sense and the large selection of casual but sturdy and well-designed indoor and outdoor furnishings as the key to the success. “There’s something for everybody here,” she said.
At 11,000 square feet, it is one of the largest showrooms at the Design Center, enough to show off dining tables like the Gargantua, a 57-inch, round jatoba and stainless steel picnic bench made in Germany (shown above: $8,854), and the leaf-shaped lounge chair of hularo, a synthetic material that resists wear and tear and bacteria (shown at upper right; $4,986).
The furniture stresses style and durability. Loom, a coated paper-over-wire weave, is the material that bleacher seats at Wrigley Field in Chicago were made of. Manufactured in Great Britain, everything in the line can be taken outside and hosed down, Gumpertz said. “You don’t have to worry about taking care of it.” (Loom butterfly armchair, shown above right, $601.)
For a Bay Area garden, a Loom table and four chairs would run about $2,500, while a couple of powder-coated aluminum, teak and mesh metal chairs from the Hugonet collection would look lovely on a city balcony at $900 each.
Prices are high, but these are definitely once-in-a-lifetime purchases.
For those looking for just the right patio chair, Janus has about 144 styles in metal, wood, glass, iron and synthetic combinations. The cafe collection (Luxembourg side chair shown above left, $264) features table and chairs for small nooks or gardens.
Janus et Cie, 2 Henry Adams St., Suite 195 (at Alameda), San Francisco. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. www.janusetcie.com.