Furniture store went from top to bottom, with benefits

Linda Moran's business went downhill. Yet it hasn't hurt her chances as a finalist in a national competition recognizing retail excellence in sales and marketing of outdoor furnishings.

That's because the downhill part of Hill Co.'s trajectory was a geographic one: a move in March from the top of the hill on Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill to the bottom.

It was risky, moving from 4,000 square feet to a space nearly three times the size in a less commercially vibrant end of the neighborhood. Up the hill, at 8615 Germantown Ave., where Hill Co. started as Hill Hardware in 1949 and transitioned into outdoor furniture in the 1970s, "people would be going to the bank and they'd run in," Moran said.

"The only reason I did this was Fresh Market will be finished in the fall," she said on a recent morning in her new showroom of furniture - many dollars and sophistication levels beyond the aluminum-framed, foldable loungers made of colorful woven straps that inhabited American yards in the 1960s.

The move also came after the punishing recession turned the business unprofitable for the first time since Moran bought it in 2005, requiring pay cuts from all employees and Moran to forgo her salary for a while.

She is relieved to have survived when other big names locally, such as Waterloo Gardens, did not.

The 11,000 square feet that Hill Co. now occupies at 8040 Germantown Ave. - "Furniture has gotten so large," Moran said - is the former home of Diane Bryman Rugs, which closed in June 2012, another recession casualty.

With the additional space, Moran saw no reason to keep open the second store she had opened in Worcester Township shortly after buying the business.

She took over Hill Co. when she was 58, "a crazy thing to do, insanity," she said. "I should have been retiring."

By then, Moran had already retired once, as a middle school teacher in Moorestown, a 10-year career that followed 18 years as a stay-at-home mother.

Eager to put to use what she had learned in an interior-design course, she stopped in at the Hill Co. store and asked owner Bruce Schmidt whether he could use some help two days a week.

She was hired and later acquired the business from Schmidt, whose father, Eli, had started it. Sales tripled within three years - before the recession disrupted discretionary spending and caused Hill Co. its first unprofitable year, under Moran's ownership. It now has 14 employees and annual sales exceeding $2.5 million, 80 percent of them for summer homes, Moran said.

"Business is tough today in the whole home-furnishings category," said Jackie Hirschhaut, executive director of the International Casual Furnishings Association (ICFA), a 200-member industry advocacy group based in High Point, N.C. "The economy hasn't bounced back as solidly as we would have liked. On the upside, everybody is talking about those staycations, so investing in their home rather than making a trip."

A bigger location on a rebounding stretch of Germantown Avenue certainly will help Hill Co., said Chestnut Hill aficionado Fran O'Donnell, who closed his O'Doodles toy store near the top of the hill in September, surrendering to daunting competition from Internet sales and big retailers and heeding a new calling.

He is now selling real estate with Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach - the former Hill Co. site among his listings. The office also will be listing the 17 condos that will be part of the Fresh Market mixed-use project at 8200 Germantown Ave.

"It's a great move for her down there," O'Donnell said. "That [Fresh Market] hub down there is going to change it."

Until then, there's the potential of winning the ICFA's Apollo Award for single-store operators, for which Hill Co. is one of six finalists. The others are from Georgia, California, Texas, and Illinois.

The winner will be announced Sept. 18 at Casual Market Chicago, the annual industry trade show. Top prize is a crystal trophy and a store banner.

Moran jokingly refers to the event as "a patio prom."

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@dmastrull