Showrooms to die for

Design clients discover high-end merchandise along with inspiration

Sep 27, 2009 : San Diego Union Tribune

Walk into the Fixtures-Visions for Living showroom off Miramar Road and you'll relive the go-go times of the real estate boom.

In one corner is a $33,000 bathtub carved from African iroko wood. In another is a $4,500 Kalamazoo brand pizza oven. You'll find a $100,000 Molteni stove from France, a $20,000 La Marzocco coffee maker from Italy, $1,000 shower heads and $30,000 Miele washer-dryers.

"We've got to have it to sell it," said Fixtures President Phil Roxworthy.

Opening this summer, Roxworthy's 30,000-square-foot launch bucked the rest of the remodeling industry, which has seen customers forgo the luxury home makeover for the absolutely minimum maintenance work required to keep the rain out and the dry rot at bay.

Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies projects that remodeling spending will continue dropping for the rest of the year; the first quarter's annualized spending rate of $118.2 billion was down from $133 billion a year ago.

"The market is flat or down from where it was two or three years ago," said David Dewhurst, chief executive of a family contracting company celebrating its 80th year in business. "At the present time, I think it's at the bottom and it feels like it's on the way up. We've seen a little more activity than we did the first of the year in terms of interest from homeowners who may want to consider remodeling and real estate agent activity."

Such optimism was behind Roxworthy's decision to open Fixtures now.

"Recessions, typically, have always been good for my personal business," said Roxworthy, 40, who learned the trade at Chicago's giant Abt Electronics store before moving here five years ago, when his wife landed a teaching job at the University of California San Diego. "I specialize in high-end remodeling and people tend to hunker down and spend money on their own houses, their own environments."

A different marketing approach is evident at another remodeling store that opened nearby. The Home Ideas Center offers showroom-like spaces to several dozen contractors and services for the public to check out.

Bill Carter, president of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry and a contractor in the Sacramento area, said getting ready for the hoped-for upturn is a good strategy for companies that can plan ahead.

"A lot of smaller and middle-of-the-road guys have dropped off," Carter said.

Serving high-end buyers works for certain contractors, he added, and offering good service and value to the less affluent with lower budgets helps generate business. Bidding is more competitive and costs are not much lower than previously, but completion times have picked up.

The National Association of Home Builders reported an improvement in second-quarter attitudes by remodelers, especially in the West, where market conditions rose 23.5 percent, more than twice the national average. Western remodelers rated market conditions at 40.5 on a scale of 100, up from 32.8 in the first quarter. The national remodeling conditions index was at 38.1, up from 34.5.

"With more calls from homeowners and more projects under way, remodelers are seeing better activity in their business," said NAHB Remodelers Chairman Greg Miedema of Tucson, Ariz.

With more than $1 million inventory on display, Roxworthy offers some jaw-dropping appliances and accessories, things you don't find at the neighborhood home improvement center.

A believer in the mid-century modern look of clean design and liberal use of color, Roxworthy says he scours design magazines (his favorite: Dwell) for coming trends and encourages his staff of 32 to do the same.

In a long line of high-tech toilets, he points out that the plumbing is carefully hidden in the porcelain base, making it easy to maintain - a key goal in many remodels and appliance upgrades.

He shows off a mesmerizing sink ($15,000) by Alchemy Glass that sits like a jewel in the middle of one section of the showroom.

"I have so many cool products," Roxworthy said. "We have all the fun stuff."

Beyond the static displays, his staff hosts evening parties for clients and their designers to demonstrate how to bake a pizza in an outdoor oven or cook sashimi on a slab of Himalayan rock salt.

On the weekends, visiting chefs, coordinated by Jeff Jackson, executive chef at the Lodge at Torrey Pines' restaurant, take Fixtures customers to local farmers markets to gather the freshest produce and return to cook them at the store.

Beginning Saturday, local chefs will hold free weekly cooking classes, ranging from "uncomplicated omelettes" to beer making. Registration for limited space is available by e-mailing skorreck@fixturesliving.com.

But show-off appliances aren't all at the $1,000-and-up price point. One room is floor-to-ceiling crammed with kitchenware that a discount-warehouse shopper can afford - like a $5 avocado knife, special salts and spices, collapsible measuring spoons and organic towels.

"Their showroom is incredible," said Terri Jordan, a general contractor in Ramona. "I think it's a fantastic place to send our clients, because they have such a wide array of appliances and fixtures, whether it be for your outdoor living space or interior remodeling."

Hedy Rogers, president of the local chapter of the National Kitchen and Bath Association, said she was not surprised Fixtures is hitting it off with the home-improvement market.

"While a lot of people are certainly operating on a reduced budget," she said, "there are still clients who have the funds to go ahead and do what they want to do."

Interior designer Jeanete Biasotti of Oceanside said Fixtures reminds her of a grand restaurant.

"It is not that we expect our normal clients are going to be able to reach for that," she said of Fixtures' pricey products, "but what it does is kind of give people an opportunity that there's more out there than just the standard sink or basin. ... It's like fashion shows: Do something in the extreme so someone gets out of their comfort zone."

Robert Durrua, vice president and general manager at the rival Standards of Excellence showroom in the Morena area, said the most popular major remodeling projects remain kitchens and baths, but now with an eye for quality and value rather than over-the-top accessories that are rarely used.

"For those of us who have less discretionary cash, there's a difference between the nice-to-haves and the need-to-haves," Durrua said. "We need a refrigerator, but do we need to spend $10,000 on a refrigerator? Probably not."

Durrua believes business will likely improve by next spring, as customers come to feel slightly more secure in their jobs and incomes.

"The other thing is people are getting sick and tired of bad news," he said. "They're going out and buying something new. That makes us feel better."

While Fixtures, Standards of Excellence and other high-end showrooms display the latest and greatest, another store offers a new way for individual contractors and suppliers to reach homeowners.

The Home Ideas Center store, which opened several months ago on the south side of western Miramar Road, offers spaces to individual companies selling services and products. But unlike the weekend home show where salesmen badger would-be buyers, visitors can look over the displays from about 70 vendors and leave their contact information with the front desk.

"For one person looking for 15 different categories, this is the easiest way to do it," said Brian Winch, who opened the center, modeled on similar outlets in Australia and New Zealand.

He added, "In today's economy, it allows vendors who have had to cut overhead down to run their business to use our facilities as their showroom and then go to work."

One example is Dale Bradshaw, who opened his Perfect Walk-in Bathtubs display at the Home Ideas Center to acquaint seniors with tubs that do not pose access problems evident in standard tubs.

"I've been in the home improvement business well over 20 years," Bradshaw said. "I have friends who are either in bankruptcy or near bankruptcy in this economy. Overall their business is suffering; they're down well over 50 percent."

But he said he is doing twice as much business this year as last, in large part due to the ideas center traffic. Nearly half the sales originate from that showroom.

"It's a great thing for us, because we're able to offer a showroom experience and display our wares without having to pay someone to man it," he said.

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