HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- For Statton Furniture's third-generation president and the Hagerstown manufacturer's craftsmen and customers, it was a sad time in late 2008 when the 82-year-old company sold off its machinery and tools, and shut its doors.
Who would guess that just a few months later, the venerable Statton name would be back in the furniture-making business?
Bounce back it did during the winter of 2009 when Eben Conner, who owns a custom woodworking company called The Master's Woodshop, struck a deal with former Statton president Hunt Hardinge to begin production again.
"I thought that (closing) was the end of it, but this new — it was just like a blessed opportunity," said Hardinge, who now works at Master's Hagerstown facility, overseeing the Statton sales and production.
"That we were still able to offer and serve those people that value the service, I thought it was wonderful and am still happy to be doing it," the 60-year-old Hardinge said.
For Conner, who is 59, the opportunity was a bit emotional and a lot practical.
"Statton's been around Hagerstown for almost 90 years. It's a pity to see an American company be just shut down like that," Conner said. "I was aware of some of the issues they had faced over the years ... The foreign competition getting to them. It's just a pity to see something like that go."
But it wasn't pity that motivated Conner to resurrect the Statton production.
"I don't have the money to just throw around," Conner said. "From my position, we do remodel work or new construction and to have another product that wasn't tied to the construction industry — that appealed to me, just as a way of broadening my own business.
"We could use the machines we have. And, we have lumber storage for several thousand board feet of lumber. The two businesses would tie together well. And, it would diversify us."
So, the Statton furniture business survives.
But, how? How are Conner and Hardinge finding success, where Statton's long experience could not?
The answer is a radical change for an American furniture manufacturer, both men agree.
No longer is Statton's solid cherry 18th- and 19th- century style furniture sold at retail stores across the nation.
To cut out the middle man, Master's Statton line is now sold directly to the customer — on the Internet and through word-of-mouth.
"I told him that's the only way we could do it," Conner said of Hardinge. "We can't afford to go to the furniture stores" because they mark up the manufacturer's prices to double or triple or more, making some retail prices too high for sales, he said.
The change to direct selling has both pros and cons, Hardinge said.
"The upside of it is that you can eliminate the middle man. You can sell for the lowest price possible, give the customer the best price, best quality," Hardinge said. "The downside is, you don't have the distribution that you would have through a standard chain of bricks and mortars.
"But the costs are significantly less. I don't have the cost of advertising, the cost of catalogs, the cost of salesmen, the cost of maintaining a large amount of inventory," Hardinge said.
"The way we're working it now, (production is) scaled to sales that come in the door. The costs are not so astronomical. We're able to adjust to what we need to do and still make a profit."
Statton, founded in 1926 by Hardinge's grandparents, Philo and Helen Statton, reached its production peak in the early 1990s. It employed as many as 200 people then, said Hardinge, whose last name is pronounced "Harding."
However, the furniture industry began to weaken economically, as consumer tastes changed and companies began sending manufacturing overseas to cut labor costs, he said.
By the time America's recession began in 2007, Statton's sales were "really just keeping our head above water," he said. The year "2008 was really when we felt the brunt of it and sales just nosedived like 50 percent."
Then, suddenly that year, long-time company president Philip Statton died and his cousin, Hardinge, who had been vice president, became president. Very soon after that, as sales continued to fall, Statton decided to close.
Meantime, Conner's business was suffering in the recession, too.
Founded in 1985, The Master's Woodshop had moved into a building at 743 Bowman Ave. and had been growing its business of custom making high-end moldings, cabinetry and other millwork products for customers in the Washington, D.C., area. Even Hillary Clinton had Master's come work at her house, Conner said.
But the recession and, until this year, its tepid recovery "have been brutal" as the amount of work and profits have fallen away, he said. "The last six years of Obama-nomics have been a total loss" for Master's, though "this year, it looks like we might be OK."
Long a cabinet maker himself, Conner said his business name, The Master's Woodshop, has "kind of a double meaning. The master is Jesus Christ — my master. But we consider ourselves (as craftsmen) to be pretty good, so if people want to take it that way, we are the best in the business at what we do."
When Conner heard that Statton was closing, he had no thought of buying its machinery or its multistory building, which is not at all suited for a modern flow of work, he said.
But he did have ties to what was happening.
Over the years, Statton occasionally had contracted Master's for such work as making serpentine crown moldings "for, like, a highboy with a bonnet top," Conner said, referring to a tall chest of drawers. And, because of their mutual need for skilled woodcrafters, Master's had hired some former Statton workers.
It was some of those, actually, who suggested to Conner shortly after Statton's closed, that Hardinge might be open to a deal. And so, Statton became a licensed product of Master's, giving it use of the original designs, with Conner hiring Hardinge and paying Statton's former owners a percentage on sales.
Now, Conner's 20 employees work on Master's main custom work and build Statton furniture, too.
The latter is made in production runs of five to 10 pieces, which are laid aside in many of Statton's various styles. As sales come in, the workers stain and finish each piece according to each customer's request in a "quite involved" process of staining, lacquering and coating, all to Statton specifications, Conner said.
"We're actually making it better than it was" made by Statton in recent years, he said. New patterns were made "in order to make things crisper than it had been."
In addition, Conner said, he has raised the standards, increasing use of the red part of the cherry, which is called heartwood, and reducing use of the white part, which is called sapwood.
For his part, Hardinge said he has gone from Statton's president to Master's "chief cook and bottle washer" for the current Statton production. But, he said, he still "loves it. I have always loved this business."
His responsibilities include sales, seeing that parts are ordered, and making sure that each Statton order gets to the production floor and the finishing areas, and that the products are shipped, he said.
Sales calls come in by phone and Internet.
"I get emails every day," Hardinge said. "It's like with any sales. You follow up. Sometimes, it's, 'Can I have an extra key?' Or, it may be, 'I've got this piece I inherited, can you tell me about it?' Or, 'I've got this piece, can you match it?' Or, 'I'd like a bedroom suite.' Or, they want to add to what they already have."
And then, he said, there's the question, "'Do you still make it in the same finish?'"
"'Well, of course, we do!'" Hardinge said he exclaims.
The sales numbers are much lower than in the old days, he said, noting that is why this form of selling would never have sustained Statton's big factory.
For now, there's an important difference: "We're making a profit," he said.