Part of the appeal is meant to be the setting. of Environment Furniture Inc., which sells furniture made from reclaimed Brazilian hardwood and linen light fixtures at H.D. "It can be a very big failure or a very big success," said Davide Berruto, the C.E.O. In some cases, they are vendors who could not otherwise afford to have their own stores. Cole's venture is based on eliminating the middleman, so manufacturers can earn more than they make selling to chains like Pottery Barn, while consumers get a price just above wholesale. Cole pays the building lease, tracks inventory and handles store operations, including cash registers and a concierge. Instead of rent, the vendors pay him 30 to 50 percent of their sales, depending on whether they use their own sales staff or his. Cole has dubbed "manutailers" (a blending of manufacturer and retailer) sell everything from midcentury modern sofas to Asian antiques. Cole sold his shares in ABC to her and moved west. I don't want to compare him in print to Bart Simpson, but in a sea of school principals, he was in your face. "When he coupled with Paulette, they became the darlings of retail, the retail renegades. "Evan is kind of a visionary," said Ray Allegrezza, editor in chief of Furniture Today, a trade magazine. The couple reinvented it in 1985 as ABC Carpet & Home, a stylized flea market stuffed with merchandise old and new, and the business shot from $5 million in annual sales in the early 1980's to $200 million today. Cole's family opened ABC in 1897 as a carpet store. Cole, along with his former wife and business partner, Paulette Cole, is known for changing the way New Yorkers shopped for furnishings by creating a downtown alternative to traditional department stores at their flagship furniture emporium on lower Broadway. Cole said, he is investing $10 million (not to mention his reputation) on a retail experiment, a 100,000-square-foot home furnishings mart housing 50 high-end manufacturers selling directly to consumers, a sort of farmers' market of furniture and home accessories. Buttercup, housed in the Art Deco Helms Bakery building in Culver City. Last month was the grand opening of his new venture: H.D. and co-founder of the home division of ABC Carpet & Home, waving his arm around the 1960's ranch house perched on a hill in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. Los Angeles - EVAN COLE may be an impresario in the home furnishings world, but he has been too busy to make a mark on his own house, which he bought in November with all the furniture and accessories intact, down to the forks and plates.
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