Waterbed moment

Company returns to roots, brings back iconic mattresses.

Waterbeds are making a comeback at City Furniture this week.

The Tamarac-based business got its start as Waterbed City in the 1970s but sold its last waterbeds in 2003, going on to build a chain of 27 furniture stores in Florida.

Now, City Furniture President Keith Koenig has partnered with Charlie Hall, the patent-holding inventor of the original waterbed, and Michael Geraghty, who had been one of the biggest waterbed suppliers in their heyday, to bring back the iconic water-filled mattresses 50 years after the original invention.

“Waterbeds are an extremely beneficial and comfortable way to sleep,” said Koenig, whose late brother Kevin founded Waterbed City, then in Fort Lauderdale.

Together, the three men founded Hall Flotation, also based in Tamarac, and developed what they’re calling the new “Afloat” brand.

“There are better materials today to reinvent the waterbed — the good things and also the things that need to be fixed,” said Koenig, who still has his 20-year-old waterbed but plans to replace it with the “Afloat” design.

“That was part of my motivation,” he said.

The patent-pending Afloat waterbed sells for $2,000 to $3,300, depending on the size: queen, king or dual kind.

Waterbeds were never completely gone but became more of a niche or nostalgia product. Companies such as Amazon and Wayfair have offered waterbed mattresses for as low $100 and mattress-andframe sets starting at $1,000.

After his original patent expired in the late 1980s, Hall said, other manufacturers created good and not-so-good versions. One improvement that developed over time, and is a feature of the Afloat model, is the soft-sided — rather than wooden — bed frame.

Other key differences in the Afloat model, he said, include a mattress material that provides more consistent flotation support; better insulation for temperature control; and improved motion suppression. “It’s not a wavy bed,” he said. Koenig said the trend is “coolerfeeling” beds — not easy to achieve in warm-weather South Florida. The Afloat dual king, or extra-large king, waterbed is designed with two temperature-controlled mattresses in one bed, which allows a couple sharing a bed to set their own best temperature for sleeping.

Susan Jaffe, of the National Sleep Foundation in Arlington, Va., said while a cooler bed could be helpful to some, sleep issues are very individual. She recommends laying on the bed at a store before purchase, and making sure it can be returned.

“You’re not going to know until you try it,” said Jaffe, a nurse practitioner in Fort Lauderdale.

Afloat comes with a manufacturer’s 100-night comfort guarantee, according to Hall Flotation.

Koenig said bed category, which includes all kinds of beds and mattresses, make up about 20 percent of City Furniture’s sales. The company has 27 stores around the state and had 2017 revenues of $360 million, up 10 percent from a year earlier, Koenig said.

City Furniture employs 1,600 people, with the bulk in South Florida at its headquarters, warehouse and stores that include some City Furniture/Ashley Furniture combinations. (City Furniture has a license to operate Ashley Furniture stores in South Florida.)

The furniture chain is expanding throughout the state as well. City Furniture is opening this year in the Orlando area, with three stores and two distribution centers planned. City Furniture also intends to open a new store in Doral in Miami-Dade County in mid-2019, Koenig said.

Last week, City Furniture shoppers Kyle and Chrissy Ramqvist, of Davie, were looking at mattresses while store managers were busy setting up a display for the new