Thornton House feels right at home four decades later
When it first opened its doors in 1978, the people behind Thornton House Furniture saw an opportunity to offer furniture and other interior design items with the personalized and individual touch that a bigger store can not provide, and they have continued this effort into their 40th year of business.
After beginning his career in furniture in 1966 as a stockboy for the furniture store chain Breuner’s, Al Nunes partnered with his friend and co-worker Mike Nicholls and decided to open the original Thornton House in Stockton in 1978. Both men had close to 15 years of experience within the company, and rather than moving up in the company by uprooting their families to a different Breuner’s location, they decided to keep their young families in Stockton and establish their own business.
“Our families were here, each of us had two young boys, and then we thought that since we had a lot of experience, if we could find a building, then we thought we could do it,” Nunes said. “We left profit-sharing, health insurance, paid vacations, and all of that other stuff, but we thought it was a good idea, and we did it.”
The men and their wives found a 4,000-square-foot building on Thornton Road, which Nunes described as looking like a house, and so the name “Thornton House” was born. The two men and their wives worked all aspects of the business — including bookkeeping, banking, ordering, receiving, and delivering — and the store performed better than they could ever have hoped.
“We exceeded all our expectations in our first year, and we made a profit,” Nunes said. “It was chancy, but it was rewarding.”
After 10 years in Stockton, the furniture store had grown in terms of products and possibilities, and the owner of what was once Newfield’s Furniture, Joe Newfield, offered Thornton House a new home in Lodi. This increased the available floor space from 4,000 square feet to 17,000, and the store began to offer additional products like window coverings, blinds and carpeting.
In his 30 years at the Lodi location on 6 S School St., Nunes said that he enjoys having the store in what he called “the heart of downtown Lodi,” as annual events like the farmers market, street fair, light parades, car shows all are located near the storefront.
“We feel like we’re a special part of downtown and we want to keep that tradition going,” Nunes said. “A lot of times we’re an information center because we’re here, and we try to make everyone who comes in, whether they’re buying or not, comfortable with asking us questions about Lodi.”
As the owner of a “brick and mortar” store in a world where a sizable amount of shopping is conducted through the Internet, Nunes said that the amount of competition has grown dramatically. However, he emphasized the undeniable convenience afforded to customers in being able to physically put their hands on the furniture piece or hold a tangible wood or fabric sample before making the right purchase.
“We want to make the purchase 100 percent, and we do it the same way we did it 40 years ago,” Nunes said. “When it is delivered into your home, we don’t want any doubts that it’s the look and feel that you wanted, and you just can’t do that on the Internet.”
Being that the store has been a part of Lodi for three decades, Nunes said that it’s not uncommon for customers to have originally come as children with their parents or grandparents, and the store encourages those who have fond childhood memories of Thornton House or even those who simply want to see a piece of Lodi’s history to get a tour and walk the floor.
“We get people who come in that were here as kids and ask us if they can just walk through and look around, and encourage them to walk around and go wherever they want to go to relive those memories,” Nunes said.
Throughout the years, Nunes said he has built relationships with other local independent business people, and he emphasized the value that he feels in being able to be friends with the customers and buy from them in return. Nunes explained that he much prefers to buy from and work with someone who he knows and trusts in his community.
“I enjoy just being part of the network of independent business people, and meeting wonderful people that are just friends,” Nunes said. “With the big corporate thing, you’d only talk to the customer when they were upset, and here you talk to them when they walk in the door.”
In the end, Nunes reiterated that Thornton House has worked to provide quality products for 40 years, and while the price tag may seem high on the first glance, the value of a reliable piece of furniture cannot be overstated.
“I didn’t invent this slogan, but ‘When you buy quality you only cry once,’” Nunes said. “It’s a little hard to swallow that cost the first time, but the fact that 20 years later it’s still sitting there and performing ... that’s the quality that we work to sell our customers.”