Mar 20, 2007

MOTIF-ated for SuccessBy Lauren MarkoeHFBusiness.com

Steve Lora and John Perez opened MOTIF Modern Living just over a year ago, and though they’re not willing to disclose hard numbers, they’re also not too shy to brag that they’re raking it in.

“It makes my hair stand on end,” said Lora, who will go so far as to say that the 21,000-square-foot store just south of Austin made “millions,” and “double what we told the bank we would make.”

Lora, president of the company, expects to open a second Texas location this year, and four more Texas locations within the next five years. This rapid expansion plan wasn’t born of a successful first year in business. Lora had the five new locations scouted out even before this first store opened. But they are only a pittance of what he predicts for MOTIF. He sees it replicating itself nationally to “dozens and dozens” of stores. “I want to grow it and grow it and grow it and grow it and grow it,” he said.

This will happen, he continued, on the strength of its merchandise and prices, but also on its character.

“We think of ourselves as a lifestyle retailer and not as a furniture store,” Lora said. “Now, of course, furniture is the bulk of what we sell, but the way that it’s presented, it’s much more akin to, say, Pottery Barn, where if you like this lifestyle, this contemporary modern look, then everything that you need is available at MOTIF. And that’s what we’re about. That’s why people drive from so far away, because they want that look.”

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