Private Club Radio Show
Welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, the industry's weekly source for education, news, trends, and other current developments in the world of private clubs.
Hosted by the talented entertainer and industry expert, Denny Corby,
the podcast offers a unique perspective on the private club industry, featuring expert guests, product spotlights, predictions, and more.
Whether you're involved in a golf club management, yacht clubs, athletic clubs, or business clubs, the Private Club Radio Show is the essential podcast for
anyone seeking valuable insights and information on the latest trends and developments in the private club industry.
Private Club Radio Show
415: Sitting Pretty: How Eustis Chair is Redefining Comfort and Style w/ Brian Langhorst
This week, I sat down with Brian Langhorst, CEO of Eustis Chair, to talk about how the right furniture can completely transform a club’s atmosphere, functionality, and member experience.
Brian shares the fascinating process behind crafting chairs that last—think 100,000 sits or more—and why durability, comfort, and style should never be overlooked.
From designing seating for iconic institutions like Harvard’s dining halls to private clubs across the country, Brian’s work is all about blending form and function to meet the unique needs of each space.
In this episode, we dive into:
- The science of chair durability and why it’s a game-changer for private clubs.
- How Eustis Chair tailors designs to match the personality of each club.
- The unexpected details that make members notice (and appreciate) great seating.
- Why investing in quality furniture pays off in ways you might not expect.
Whether you’re managing a club renovation, hosting large-scale events, or just curious about what goes into designing the perfect chair, this episode is packed with insights and stories that will change the way you look at seating.
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, denny Corby. Welcome to the show. In this episode I am chatting with a great friend, friend of the industry, another good human, a good hooman, brian Langhorst, the CEO, or Eustace Chairs. They make some of the most durable, amazing and comfortable chairs available, all made here in the States, a truly fantastic product. That I mean. His chairs can be found in places like the Harvard Freshman Dining Hall, the New York Public Library, in clubs and spaces all over the country. He even saw some of his chairs in Fenway Park, which is really cool. But he and I have such a great fun conversation. It's always a good time when he and I chat, always good energy and to hear how much Pat. So we hear about his story of how he went from working in real estate software to running literally one of the most respected chair companies in the country, if not in the world, and we talk about what that journey was like and just how someone can have so much passion for chairs. It reminds me of almost Ron Swanson from a Parks and Rec episode with like the chair convention, but we have a lot of good laughs in this episode. We learn about him, his story and what makes his chair so special. And what cracks me up is I had some like I don't want to say funny jokes for him or things that I just thought were funny, but there were actually things so I asked him about. We talk about like what's the average sit life Like? Is there tests that are done to measure how much like up and down sitting a chair can take? And I didn't expect a yes, but like there is, and we talk about that. We also learn about what Eustace chairs can and can't do and we learn about just the cool customization and the cool types of chairs and things that Eustace does for their clients all over.
Speaker 1:And it's funny you bring up perspective and bringing on different people and talking about different things and there's little details. That of course, when we brought it up in conversation you're like, oh, of course that makes sense, but when you don't think about it from like one perspective, one point of view, it makes sense. So, for example, we talk about different chairs for different rooms and for different people. And if you have a card room that's primarily for older women who play bridge, that's going to be a different chair you're going to want to have in there than, say, if it's more used for a men's lounge poker room. Those chairs are going to be a different style, a different cushiness, a different support. So we talk about things you did not even think you needed to know about chairs. But pull up your favorite chair and listen in.
Speaker 1:In all seriousness, though, it is such a cool honor and pleasure to have him on, to learn about him, his story, the Eustace story, the history and how much just passion there is for chairs and for helping clubs and helping clubs get the best chairs possible for their members and I hate to. There is an art to the chair, to getting the proper chair for your club. It's like almost silly to think about, but it's not, because it makes so much sense for how much people are going to be using them, and sometimes people don't put that much effort into things like that, but they should. So before we get to the episode, quick thank you to some of our show partners Kenneth's member vetting Golf Life Navigators and Concert Golf Partners, as well as myself, the Denny Corby Experience. If you want to learn more about having one of the most fun member event nights at your club, head on over to dennycorbycom. It's one of the most fun evenings your club is going to have guaranteed.
Speaker 1:And while you're searching the interwebs, go to privateclubradiocom. Sign up for the newsletter, because I will be releasing the club entertainment guide soon. Everything you need to know about putting on and having the best events possible, early access to people who are on the newsletter. So make sure you sign up, privateclubradiocom. Enough about that, listeners, get ready. This is such a fun episode, lots of good laughs and you're gonna learn more about chairs than you needed to know. Let's welcome to the channel, mr brian langhorst, for you great man.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, just uh dealing with all the fun stuff in chair furniture world now do you get a lot of people who are going into the new year or looking at the new year now going like we got to spend some money, let's get some new chairs. Like, do you get a lot of like that? Like, okay, we got money to burn, you know?
Speaker 2:Occasionally there's, like you know, always the issues that pop up. Like one of the local clubs, they realized their boardroom chairs were like just kind of getting long in the tooth, not looking as sharp as they might like. And here you're talking about, you know, really nice club, really distinguished members, um corporate leaders, whatever else and, like you know, sitting in like the the peeling, cracking chairs, like oh, that's not quite the the level of of hospitality that they're giving out everywhere else, but it's like that boardroom that's kind of tucked away yep, yep, I got you so, yeah, occasionally there's that.
Speaker 2:But then it also rolls into like oh hey, we want to replace chairs. But then the committee kind of goes well, what about the walls, what about the drapes, what about the carpets? And then all of a sudden like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, we need to kind of now go back and what are we doing here? Are we actually going to go through a full renovation and spend you know $15 million? Are we just going to replace chairs for, uh, you know a hundred thousand or something like that? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Now is there. Is there like a like? Is there a? I don't know if threshold is the right word, but like how many times a butt is supposed to hit like a chick? Is there like a like a, like a? Is there like a like a threshold of like? Okay, hey, this chair is going to last about like a hundred thousand sits Like. Is there? There is testing.
Speaker 2:That is hilarious, Like how many times can I like sit down on this or like have a kid? That's like jumping up and down.
Speaker 1:No, because to me, like you know A, because, like I always go to like the funny but also the B of like, that would be a great selling To me. I would use that as like a selling point. But listen, oh you, like you do, like you know X amount of weddings, or like you know so many events. But listen, x amount of weddings, or like you know so many events. But listen, this chair, right here, a hundred thousand sits like guaranteed, a hundred thousand asses guaranteed. But no, but like like sort of kidding, like sort of not like is there like, but they so like there is testing that's done about?
Speaker 2:oh for sure they have. Like there's a testing lab and there's several around the country and we kind of have our own little testing lab factory where they literally take a sandbag and, you know, fill it with, like you know, 200 pounds, 150 pounds, whatever, and they literally just drop it from you know 24 inches, 36 inches, and like plop, plop, plop, you know, like rope, back up again, plop it again. You know you can just cycle, test it for as many cycles as you want. So it could be 100 000. We think our, our chairs are probably, um, uh, good for 250 000 sits that what?
Speaker 1:what's the chair rating? There's like there's ratings for tires and like other stuff. It's like what's what's? What's the what's the chair sit rating? Oh my God.
Speaker 2:That's so sit rating. Do you have Z rated tires? Oh no, we have 200,000 sit tested chairs Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, so how. I think you told me once but how did you end up in the chair biz Like? Did you just wake up one day thinking like the you know what the world needs better chairs or was it more of a slow burn?
Speaker 2:It was a very slow burn and just like you know completely, you know it's one of those like serendipitous things that you're like, you almost can't like, whether it's fate, serendipity, god you know. Whatever you know, pick your thing. You're like. It certainly wasn't on my plan. I wasn't like, okay, we're going to do this, then we do that, and then I'm now, I'm going to go buy a chair company. It's like, oh well, you know, I think the last company I worked at I didn't even have a chair, so we had like standing desks on cinder blocks and we were a real estate software startup, so we didn't have really I think we had chairs in the boardroom and stuff like that or like the meeting room, but definitely not at my desk.
Speaker 2:We were just, you know, stand up calling, talking.
Speaker 1:So how did you get it, like, how did you find? Because it was a family owned business, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah so, fred, fred, fred Eustace's father, bill Eustace, started the company out of like nothing and so he bought a factory out in western kind of central Massachusetts what used to be the hardwood chair capital of the country in Ashburnham, gardner, Massachusetts. Are you serious? Um, yeah, and so like they have a giant chair, um, and you know, then I think, the nexus moved down to like north carolina, which is kind of what everyone presumes is the hardwood chair capital of the country. Yeah, um, but yeah so, bill, uh, bill eustace started it in 1989 and then fred bought it from his dad in the late 90s, um, and fred's four daughters wanted nothing to do with the business. Uh, they're all you know great uh, people there are, you know, lawyers, teachers, consultants, um, and then a sailing captain, um, so they're all doing their things and nobody really was interested in chairs. Nobody caught the chair bug.
Speaker 1:And at this point you were already working for them. Like, how did you even come into, like, how did you even get involved into it?
Speaker 2:So we moved to Boston from my wife's grad school. She's a nurse practitioner at Children's here in Boston and she was coming to get her master's in nursing at Boston College. We moved to Boston from Seattle in 2012. And I worked for this real estate software startup for two or three years there, two or three years there. And while I was doing that, there's this really cool group of business owners locally in New England called the CEO Roundtable, and the founder owner of my previous company was a member of that, and so is my brother's father-in-law and in the crazy small world up in Andover, massachusetts, my sister-in-law babysat and was kind of the you know favorite babysitter for Fred Eustace's four girls growing up in Andover, and so that's kind of this crazy small world, and so I was literally up at my brother's house for like a family dinner and Dick Sundberg kind of was our matchmaker and he's like hey, I know you do websites for real estate brokerages. I know you can't help my friend, but at least maybe you could like tell him what he needs to know and give him a quick, you know primer. He's got a website. He's had a website for a long time, but you know he kind of needs to update it. Would you meet with him? I'm like, oh, yeah, sure, absolutely. So I met with Fred at the Harvard club of Boston and we sat down for coffee and we're chatting for a while and I looked, did a little bit of research. I was like, oh, that seems like a cool company. And I kind of gave him like a list of maybe three or four companies that could help him with his website and said, hey, here's what you need to look for. You should interview each of these companies and anybody else you feel like. And you know, but it looks like you got a cool company. But good luck, godspeed. You know I'm off doing my real estate thing. I'll check you later, let me know if you need anything. And so I didn't think anything about it after that meeting. It was great, always nice to get together at the Harvard Club of Boston, because it's just what you think of as quintessential Boston and Steve and his team there they do just such an incredible job.
Speaker 2:But yeah, and then fast forward, maybe a couple months later, later I'm up at my brother's house again, and then Dick was like hey, brian, come here, I want to chat with you for a little bit. I was like, okay, he's like, so it turns out there's more to the story than just replacing his website. He really needs help growing the business and and you, he, he, he needs somebody to buy him out. And I was like, who, who, what me, how am I going to do that? I don't have that kind of cash. So. But of course, you know those, these deals aren't really cash deals. Me sometimes they are, but a lot of times it's this kind of slow transition and kind of you know handoff, so that's we kind of you know handoff, so that's what we kind of.
Speaker 2:I like to think that Fred and I dated, so to speak, for probably six months or a year, over lunch dinner, you name it, and kind of seeing if, hey, is this the right fit? But the more I thought about it, what Fred had built was really cool in the sense that in my previous role selling real estate software and agent productivity tools, it's so fast changing that people are redoing their websites every year or two, three, maybe five at the very max, and so it's this very fleeting thing that you know like, okay, great. Or there's lots of industry consolidation compasses buying up seemingly every real estate brokerage they can, and it's challenging, I get it. But you know real estate's awesome, but that you know it was cool to go into Harvard's freshman dining hall. That is just one of those truly magical places with the soaring ceilings and wood paneling and all of these. You know historical paintings and busts of famous Harvard alum. And you kind of go wow, and those are our chairs that we installed in 1994 for 650 chairs that are all still there. And you kind of go wow, okay, that's kind of cool that we can build something that can truly last and we have a really better product. That's like that was the biggest thing for me.
Speaker 2:Cause, cause, I grew up my uh, mother's side of the family has a commercial cooking equipment company in Chicago, um Keating of Chicago, and so I grew up going to trade shows in the restaurant industry. So I grew up going to NRA and NAFM and regional trade shows and stuff like that and my grandfather had invented he forgot, he didn't patent it fast enough but he invented like the convection oven, essentially what, yeah? And so he was like, oh, hey, if we're making an oven, because they were making ovens and ranges and grill like and like deep fat fryers, heat lamps, everything that would go in a commercial kitchen. And so he's like, hey, we can decrease the cook time if we just blow the radiant heat around a little bit better. And so we put a fan motor in the back pretty simple, but he was the first guy to do that, but he didn't't, wasn't able to patent it fast enough, um, but he did all kinds of things, and so his thing was always trying to build better um, and so you know, his thing in our like claim to fame in the kitchen world is that, uh, keating of chicago deep fat fryer, when you drop a basket of french fries, the temperature goes way down really fast because you're putting in a whole bunch of frozen stuff usually, or maybe it's fresh cut, but either way like a huge temperature differential, and so the temperature the oil drops way down, and then that makes it cook longer. It has, the cook time has to be longer, and so what my grandfather invented was a better way to kind of allow for more even heat distribution so that you can cook fries faster and more evenly to be more crispy.
Speaker 2:And so that's kind of the same thing that I was like, oh, this is kind of like what my grandfather had done in commercial kitchens. He's the Fred and his dad kind of had done for chairs, that literally we had better chairs, that instead of every other chair kind of being built the old fashioned way and just kind of that's good, we could do something way better, that could be stackable, more functional and also way more durable. So I was like, hey, yeah, absolutely, what's not to like about that? Like this is a cool business. Like this is a cool business. And, yeah, we have this really awesome historical group of of um places we've installed chairs, but then there's so many people that have never heard of us even today. Like it's like we're still a little little tiny company.
Speaker 2:So it's like, oh, wow, I can grow this. This is an awesome opportunity. So, um, it'll kind of just made so much sense. I would have, uh, probably never forgiven myself if I didn't at least give it a try. Yeah, and so, um, then fast forward. Like you know, 2018, fred and I uh closed, sent him into retirement. Um, so he's off. You know, sailing, golfing, enjoying his club on the cape as much as he can and going to visit his grandchildren and his daughters and, you know, travel with his wife and just enjoy, uh, being in your mid-70s.
Speaker 1:So, um, it was great yeah yeah, can you spot your chairs, like can you go into almost any place and know if it's a use of shit. Like are you that good?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I mean it's, it's you know, you get it got brainwashed in the sense that it's like, oh my gosh, I'm definitely now the guy that goes into like Starbucks and like huh, who built this chair? Let me flip this thing over. Oh, what kind of chair glides do they have? You know, look, walk into this library.
Speaker 1:That place like, oh, ah, shivari chairs, ah, bane of my existence now, when you so now would you go into a place and you recognize one of your chairs. Is it like? Is it like a proud papa moment? Is it like a you know like? Is it like a senior kid on stage at like the school play? Or is it like like, ah, I gotcha.
Speaker 2:We here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What's the? What's the?
Speaker 2:So true, oh my gosh, it is so kind of ridiculous. But like my friend from college is like one of my best friends in the whole world, he's one of my, he's my best man. At my wedding he was in town. He works for the Seattle Seahawks in their press uh department and so he was here when the uh seahawks were playing the patriots and he has saturday as an off day, um, and so we were doing a tour at fenway and you know we just paid regular kind of off the street, and so it was me and my wife and my, our two little girls and my buddy john uh, taking a tour of fenway, um, and it was kind of cool, cause they were setting up for the Pearl Jam show that was on the infield, that that uh next day, on Sunday, and uh, it was like Sunday and Tuesday, I think, were the show days, um, it was cool, like they're rigging and you know, getting the stage all set up and doing sound checks and stuff, um, and then we walked by the uh deli mc club and like, sure enough, my bar stool was like literally like just out, kind of like right in, like the breezeway, um, and I was like, oh my gosh, and we're at the tail end of the line of like the tour, as we're kind of going up to the press box, uh, behind home plate, and I was like, hey girls, hey, quick, sit up in that chair really fast.
Speaker 2:And so both my girls like skibble up into the bar stool or whatever and I'm like taking pictures being like, oh, this is not fast.
Speaker 1:So yeah, seeing my bar stools or chairs in the real world. They're like oh, get a picture with me and you're like playing in the chair. Check out my bar stool yeah.
Speaker 2:But it is so ridiculous, but, but it is so ridiculous. But yeah, it is, it is. But it is really cool when you like walk into um like a club, like the club at carlton woods. That's just one of those amazing top tier clubs where they are just doing such an extravagant level of customer service and hospitality. Like steve salzman, as you know, I mean, he's just amazing, yeah, and like the level of like just kind of like incremental. They're already like amazing, but he keeps on finding little ways to get better and better and better and like, bring in like that super master chef that there's only like 50 of in the whole entire world.
Speaker 2:Yep, and you know that that's the guy that's, you know, making the wine dinner pairings and creating this beautiful cuisine. It's like you're going to 11 madison park with danny and will, but no, you're. You're in texas, um, at steve's place, um, living your best life, yeah, um. But to walk into a place like that and see our chairs is always super special. It does kind of make you like, oh yeah, this is pretty cool, this is really special.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and all your stuff is like every it's all USA made here. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. So everything gets made to order. So you get to like you know, kind of goldilocks your chairs, a little bit like oh, this one's a little too big, this one's a little too small, oh, this one's just right. So we kind of have a lot in that, in our line of like, okay, this one's one inch wider, this one's you know, one inch smaller, this one's okay, perfect, okay. And we can also like change the amount of foam that we put in the cushion so like like, hey, we want ours extra squishy. Actually, that's too squishy, we don't want.
Speaker 1:We don't want that level of squish now, do you ever have like where there's the squish, where it has a sound, and how do you handle that like? Do you have like or is there fabrics that you don't use anymore? Or if like, is there like? Have you found there's a certain fabric and like squish level that is just like not good, like that combination just calls for, like fart sounds?
Speaker 2:um, we have it. I can't think of anything. I mean, there are some of like the um, faux leather vinyl. That's great because it's easily cleanable, it's durable, it's good for you know, like um, you know years and years and years um.
Speaker 2:But some of them are a little like squeaky, more of just like that kind of you're like that's a little annoying, um, but you know, so many of those manufacturers have done such an incredible job of like making really great stuff that you almost can't tell if it's real leather or not. Now in some of the really high end vinyl companies you're like, oh wow, that's, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1:Have you ever had like a real wild request, like we wanted to match our golf carts, or like they want to do something like crazy?
Speaker 2:do something like crazy. Yeah, we did have one pretty interesting one where they wanted us to send the chairs unfinished and unupholstered to Arizona and it was going to this guy's private dining room for 24. I was like, wow, that's like I don't know, I can't even imagine the size of the table, but the he was going to have the table company that was local in arizona finish our chairs in the same finish as his table and then he was getting some, you know, fancy leather or something like that for his seats. I was like, hey, that's cool that's.
Speaker 1:That's pretty neat. You need more, more clients like that. You do all the work you yeah, you do all the work.
Speaker 2:We'll just build the chairs. You can finish them, you can upholster them off you go, good luck the ikea model.
Speaker 1:No, exactly like. Oh yeah, you can just build it yourself.
Speaker 2:Do you perfect newton the?
Speaker 1:you know whatever do you have a like a studio there or like, do you send samples? Like it's like, what if, like a club is like interested and they're like hey, we're torn between like these. Like do you have like shippable ready chairs? Do you like? Do people come to you Like what's the how does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have like a fleet of I think it's 266 sample chairs that live in the old accounting office at the factory and the old accounting office at the factory and we just send them out so we can send you usually like to send two if we can, because you can fit two side chairs in one box. So then it's not astronomical shipping and we don't lose tons of inventory. But you know we get it Like a lot of clubs have board turnover. We had some sample chairs out there for like two and a half years as the board kept on turning over and then they got a new GM and then the board turned over again, whatever. So I was like, yeah, just keep the sample chair, don't lose it. But yeah, take your time, no rush.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we love to send out sample chairs because there's nothing like sitting in a chair and kind of going oh okay, how is this really going to feel in a long meeting in a nice dinner and so many of the chairs out there are either really really big, like just the other day a club called and was like oh yeah, we bought these chairs five years ago and it was just like we didn't see it first and everyone, even some of the men have to put a pillow behind their back because the chair is just too big and you're like, oh, that's not really cool for a nice club to have your members kind of having to put like a little throw pillow behind your back so that you can be comfortable during dinner with your friends and getting together. Like, oh yeah, I get that. So, um, you know, we'll see, hopefully they get. They'll like oh yeah, I get that. So you know we'll see, hopefully they get, we'll get some chairs for them that's the right size, that aren't gonna swallow them up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you so? Is there like there must be chair education? Then, like, at that point Cause I'm assuming like no, for that same reason people are like, oh, we like love these and want these, and you're probably like you being the expert doing it, so long it's like you know they might not be the best fit, or, you know, have you had a line? Do you have a line that after a little bit it was just like, hey, this is just not a good fit, we're just going to not even offer it anymore.
Speaker 2:I can't think we don't have anything like that.
Speaker 2:That's good, because all the things we release are very known to us and they've gone through a lot of testing, so we kind of like okay this is, you know, tried and true, and then we send it out so that we make sure that you know, like we've learned over the years, no-transcript, and so, like card room chairs, it's not one size fits all. You kind of need to know the project, because ladies cards, they're all sitting upright and kind of, you know, more engaged in their game, whereas like men's card rooms, completely the opposite. Those guys are, like you know, holding their cards sitting way back, hanging out, relaxing, and so they want a much more reclined chair that's kind of like able to like, really give them a lot of, you know, lean back. And so, you know, once we sent out sample chairs, uh, to a club in california and the gm didn't specify whether it was ladies or men's cards, and sure enough, he ordered chairs, um, and this was for men's cards, and these were like member dining chairs and the members were like we can play cards in this.
Speaker 2:I can't lean back far enough. My buddy's going to see my cards. What the heck is this? And so cool story. This is the only time we've ever resold our chairs. Resold our chairs, um, and lynn lafondaluka, uh, the wonder woman, um, she uh got us in touch with the club at pasadena and sure enough, like, um, you know, they now have those chairs that just weren't the right fit, um, so that was like our one kind of like oh shoot, yeah, we didn't ask enough questions, or the gm, you know, didn't know the question to ask, or whatever to know, like, hey, ladies card room not the same as men's card room, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. As soon as you even started going down that rabbit hole, I was like I would not have even thought about that. Like the different types of card room chairs and just those, those little bit of details. No, that all makes a huge difference.
Speaker 2:types of card room chairs and just those those little bit of details. No, that all makes a huge difference. Yeah, and also, I mean even just like things like fred eustace is six two and his wife lisa is five, three or four, something like that. Um, and so you know, you also want to have maybe lots of members sit.
Speaker 2:Test that sample chair so that you know, hey, is it going to be comfortable for everybody, or are we just all catering to the demographics of the board or whoever's the house committee that might be choosing the chairs? Make sure you get a wide population of people that are testing it out, making sure that somebody that's 5'3" or, or five, five or six, two, that they can all sit in the chair and it's all comfortable for them, because we can, you know, make the sitting height a little bit shorter, a little bit taller. Um, so I could only imagine, for probably, like michael jordan's club in florida, he might have people that are all tall. Maybe there's not a lot of short people at his club, because it's all you know maybe ex-basketballers and, uh, you know, nfl guys and whatever else out there, kind of taking each other's money, um, but I don't know, that's who knows yeah, I even think about that, do you?
Speaker 1:so do clubs have like, will they set up, like will they put like a chair out front and say, hey, like we're thinking about, like thinking about getting these like take it for a spin? Like do they sometimes get like two or four and there's like a table set up and they can like test drive it for a meal or something Like do clubs actually do that Like?
Speaker 2:is that like a thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's absolutely, that's what we encourage them to do. Yeah, you know, sit in a meeting in this chair. You know, eat in this chair, see, if you like it, uh, take it for a spin. Absolutely so, it's so true, but it's just like so, oh my gosh, like if you would have asked me 10 years ago or whatever, I guess no, it was maybe about 10 years ago if I would be like talking to, uh, denny and private club Radio about sit testing, chairs and whatever else and seat height and foam density and all the other silly things. Like what kind of world do you think this is? But yeah, that is the life in the chair world, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Jim ever have any clubs that are way too excited about chairs that it might challenge your level of excitement that you get from chairs?
Speaker 2:No, no, I think you know understandably. I mean I have so much profound respect for everyone in the club industry and the way that they handle. You know all of the complexities of these clubs. You know they're having, you know record rounds, record membership levels and doing an amazing job of creating hospitality, and you know bringing on these amazing new, young and up-and-coming people in the club industry and so it's just so cool. But they have so much going on. So to see anybody have like crazy level of excitement of chairs right and like I get it. You got a lot of stuff that you got to worry about pots and pans and carpet, and you know go carts and you know golf carts and all the other good stuff, and it's like, oh my gosh, like you just need to keep everything humming at that high level so I can get the. You might not get excited about this that you just need new chairs and you want to keep moving on and have your members stop griping.
Speaker 1:What's what is the superior chair Like? What is your Rolls Royce of chair?
Speaker 2:Well, there's two that come to mind. There's this one chair that's like one of those iconic chairs. So in New York City, right off of Battery Park, there's the New York Public Library in Midtown and it's that, you know, they have the two lions out front, yeah. And then there's this amazing reading room called the rose reading room and it is just one of those jaw-dropping rooms with cathedral ceilings and beautiful paintings on the ceilings and skylights and it's just as you walk in there and it's almost like going into, you know, notre dame or something like that, or a beautiful church where you're just like wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 2:Like I can't even imagine how long these craftspeople took to build this and the marble and the you know, granite and all the different like detail. You're like wow, it just makes you feel really small and kind of just like wow, um. But they have these amazing chairs that have a lot of detail to them, um, that are kind of classic boart style chairs and we were lucky enough to be asked to replicate their chairs and that chair is amazing but it's very detailed, really comfortable, but it's super special, but lots of steam bendings, lots of labor, lots of material costs.
Speaker 2:So you guys have your catalog, but you also do custom work and whatever they, yeah, really want. That is cool, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've had a lot of clubs, um, that have come to us and said, hey, this chair manufacturer, we have these chairs that are, you know, 100 years old, 50 years old. The manufacturer's long gone. We love these chairs. Can you make this chair stack? Like sure, absolutely, you know, um, here's what it's going to take. It's not not, you know, like we can't just whip it up in two weeks. It's going to probably be a year-long process of first drawing the chair up in cad and like giving them a pdf to be like, hey, here's how it's going to look, do you like that? And then they can say, oh, let's make it a little taller, shorter, wider, whatever. And then, hey, now we'll actually build up a real sample. And we have amazing craftsmen that can build up a sample chair, um, and that takes a couple weeks, uh, once you actually get their attention, because a lot of times, you know, we have new chairs in production and whatever else, and so they're working on projects, and so it might be a two-month queue of projects before the craftsman can really dive into that chair and then we build that chair, send it out to the club, make sure that they like it, um, and then they say yes, and then all of a sudden, then we come back and you know, build up, sudden they would come back and you know, build up that chair, create the fixtures, and you know jigs and everything like that to shape the parts and machine the parts and then off we go. So we've definitely done that, but it is, you know, a special project and we're happy to do it, but it definitely costs a fair penny and it definitely takes a little bit of time. But, uh, we definitely do that.
Speaker 2:So we've done. You know, thomas Edison's workshop chair from his old lab and bell labs in New Jersey. That's now at uh in Dearborn at um the Henry Ford museum, and literally they have that same chair and I think they had originally had that. That's the one that's at Harvard's freshman dining hall that we call the Edison chair, and so we've done that for Harvard. Rice University has those in one of their dining halls, penn has them in one of their dining halls and Bowdoin College has them in their dining hall. So it's super cool.
Speaker 2:We have some of those chairs, like the New York Rose Reading Room chair and the Edison chairs. We have some replica chairs, for sure, and then lots of other ones that have just kind of gotten created, you know, with working with general managers and their designers. Like there's a really popular chair, uh, called the council room, that we designed, um with one of the new england general managers and his interior designers and architects, um for the yale club of new york city and they have one of their really cool rooms called the council room and you know we said hey how cool would it be to have your own chair named after your kind of signature meeting room, um.
Speaker 2:So the council room chair got born for that.
Speaker 2:And then, uh, and then we created, we sent that chair down to, um, the park city club in Dallas, uh, which is a really cool spot. If you're ever down in Dallas they're in the high rise up on like the 19th floor and Harry and his team down there and Michael like that chair and like this is going to be perfect. But we need to make this thing two inches wider and one inch taller because it's Texas sized. So the Park City chair got born for the Park City Club in Dallas and it truly is like a great chair, that Texas size. But you know, now all of a sudden we have that chair in Ohio and down in Florida and all over the place it's a great chair.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's kind of more of what we'd end up doing is like, hey, take this chair and kind of make a little small modification, you know, make this chair more decorative. Hey, you know, fore bendy, down at river oaks, they really liked one of our stacking hardwood chairs that has a really neat design in the back and he said, hey, could we do this with a ball and claw foot? We said, absolutely, here's 20 ball and claw foot options to choose from, and so now we have a river oaks chair for joe and his team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's what's like a? It's probably hard to say, but like what's like the maybe average, like what's like the premium that people will pay for a cut like a totally custom chair.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. I'd say that probably a lot of it depends on the quantity.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say probably quantity and also the amount of detail. If it's taking something that you already do and have before, you just want to change a few, like cosmetic things, it's probably yeah, so I okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a tricky one, but yeah, it's a good question. So, yeah, I mean that's. You know. It's really easy to say, oh yeah, hey, can you make this chair one inch taller? Yeah, we can do that, that's not a problem, that's pretty darn easy. Um, can you, you know, put one more inch of foam in the seat? Absolutely, that's. You know, we can do that in our sleep. What kind of, what kind of uh, what kind of uh operation of uh chairs do you have over there?
Speaker 1:you got a bar stool I have you, uh, have a standing desk. What are we working with? This is probably uh, this is a way too old like adjustable stool that's on like a, on like a ball almost. Oh yeah, so it just kind of like kind of yeah, so because I don't yeah, because I have a standing desk, so I'll sit or stand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um kind of like back in your old uh, your old uh days yeah yeah, so I wish you congratulations, uh, in person, for your 410th now episodes like I, just like, I think it is so cool well, hey, I want to thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1:You know, keeping us absolutely keeping us on the edge of our seats and you are too kind, denny, that was.
Speaker 2:That was like right up my alley of like home run through it over the green monster uh oh, the green monster green monster.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, sadly we don't have any chairs. Because you can sit now on the green monster, um, and they're like really sought after tickets, because you get a pretty cool view, because you're like right by the pesky pole, yeah, um, in carlton fisk fame and stuff like that, so they're cool seats and then you can also kind of like turn around and like you can see like Boston and the Charles River and all that stuff. So it's kind of cool. But yeah, we don't have any chairs there, just only in the private club levels. But that is definitely my dream is to be able to watch a Red Sox game in one of my chairs or bar stools. So maybe someday we'll have to get you out of here for that. Ooh, now we're talking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, buddy.
Speaker 1:Hope you all enjoyed that episode. I know I did. If you want to learn more about Eustace Chairs, link in the bio or head over to EustaceChairscom. If you've not done so already, sign up for the newsletter. No-transcript.
