In January 2002, Legacy Furniture opened its doors in a 1,000-square-foot factory in Conover, N.C., with just over 100 products in its line. Today, as Legacy celebrates its eighth year in business, the company resides in a 139,000-square-foot operation offering more than 600 products – and counting. In an economically hard-hit area that has watched the furniture industry nearly vanish, the American-made, locally-owned legacy that Legacy Furniture has established is nothing short of remarkable.

So how does Legacy do it?

“We attribute our success to our people, our employees,” says Legacy Furniture Co-owner Todd Norris. “We pour everything we make back into the company and into our community by hiring folks who live right here in the Catawba Valley area. We recently told the Economic Development Corporation that we are committed to hiring at least 50 more people over the next five years. We believe it’s important to invest in our community, and we are grateful that they, in turn, invest in us.”

Norris owns Legacy Furniture with his father, Clark Norris, and business partner David Reinhardt. Legacy was named in part due to the family legacy they represent – but it also highlights their combined 100-year experience in the furniture industry, the family ties of other employees, and their efforts to sustain the furniture industry in their hometown.

“Clark, David and I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to do this,” Todd Norris explains. “We’ve all been in the furniture industry our whole lives. My father’s been in the business for 44-plus years, David’s been in it for 37 years, and I’ve been in it for 21 years. David and his son, Randy, build all our hardwood frames at Dimension Wood Products. This is all we’ve ever done. We’ve always been in the furniture business, and we’ve always been craftsmen.

“You know, the name ‘Legacy’ comes from the lineage we have in it and what we’re trying to do,” Norris continues. “We’re trying to keep the furniture industry alive here. It’s much more viable than people really understand. When we mention furniture people automatically think it’s all imported now, and that’s not the case by a long shot. We’re hoping that local businesses will see that they have a quality resource right here in their backyard.”

A Focus on ‘Hospitality Healthcare’
Legacy Furniture designs and manufactures furniture for the healthcare, institutional, corporate, and hospitality industries. This includes everything from seating and dining areas to exam room furniture for hospitals and acute care facilities, medical offices, senior and assisted living residences, colleges and universities, and country clubs. However, Legacy’s primary focus is and always has been on healthcare.

“We call what we do ‘hospitality healthcare,’” Norris says. “It’s a phrase we coined because we’re in both of those industries. But why not feel like you’re at home when you’re in a hospital or an assisted living facility? When it comes to furniture, anything that would make your stay in a healthcare facility more comfortable and enjoyable is what we make.”

Much of that comfort is imparted through Legacy’s legion of skilled employees, who ensure that each piece they produce is of the highest quality for their customers. Legacy also makes conservation and sustainability an important part of its day-to-day operations.

“As we grow, we’re continuing to focus on healthcare and provide products that really promote healing to a degree – products that promote a pleasant stay at or visit to these facilities,” Norris continues. “That’s our goal. We can’t heal people; that’s what doctors do and what divine intervention does. But we can certainly do our small part to help these facilities make their visitors or residents comfortable.”

A Focus on Innovation
A big factor in Legacy’s business model is its commitment to innovation. Legacy Furniture has already received four provisional patents (with more in the works) for customized products such as its unique Barinomic® chair, which expands to accommodate patients with special needs. It has also received several Innovation Awards at NeoCon®, North America’s leading exhibition and conference for the contract furnishings industry. This forward-thinking design approach has helped Legacy differentiate itself from its competitors in an ever-changing and highly competitive healthcare marketplace.

“The healthcare industry continues to grow and change at a rapid pace,” Norris says. “Healthcare facilities need to stay current, both aesthetically and technically, in order to show patients that they are keeping up with modern technology. We provide them with customized, innovative furniture that’s as comfortable as it is practical. And in doing so, we can help them maintain facilities that reflect the leading-edge image they’ve worked hard to earn.”

From day one, Legacy Furniture understood this dynamic and made innovation synonymous with success.

“Innovative products aren’t widgets,” Norris maintains. “If a company can produce the same thing over and over ten thousand times, that’s fine. But to truly lead your industry with innovative products that make a difference and add value to people’s lives, you can’t mass produce that.

“We want to continue to lead with innovation,” Norris adds. “To quote Bill Gates, ‘Innovation defines whether a company is going to be a leader or a follower.’ We want to be a leader.”

A Focus on People
At the end of the day, though, Norris acknowledges that Legacy’s success still comes down to one thing: people.

“We are family here,” Norris says. “There are brothers, mothers and sons, and cousins working here. And it’s not just our family; it’s many families. Legacy is a real family tradition, and we’re proud of that. As a family-run and family-oriented business, there’s a more personal touch to everything we do. ”

Growth for Legacy Furniture means a continued focus on innovation in the healthcare industry that will help them capture even more market share. For a local furniture company, this is hardly out of reach; Legacy has closed the books on one of the worst years in recent economic history with a double-digit growth in profits. As Norris emphasizes, that growth would be nothing without the people it serves.

“Our bottom line always rests on a few fundamental things,” Norris says. “Hiring good people, sustaining a good community, and providing good products to the people who need them – that’s really what it’s all about.”