At 33, Chicago designer Michael Heltzer is sitting pretty. After only seven years in the business, his metal and wood furniture has been picked up by leading showrooms coast-to-coast and is being introduced in Europe this fall.
An exhibitor at the recent International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, he was one of a handful of furniture designers saluted by Barneys New York, the New York-based fashion bastion, with a display of Heltzer’s furniture in its Manhattan flagship windows.
And, his seven-employee company, Heltzer Furniture Design, is doing a respectable $1 million in sales annually, despite it being decidedly small by industry standards.
Talking shop in his combination manufacturing facility, showroom and loft in Ravenswood, Heltzer seems secure with his success — and very thankful for it.
Though he was well on his way as a corporate and real estate attorney, Heltzer says he felt he was on the wrong track. So, in 1986 he exchanged the perks of a profession for the tools of a trade.
“I always wanted to do something art-related,” he says, “but felt that I could never earn a living at it. So I tried to find a balance, something that was both artistically oriented and commercial.
“I had a real strong interest in furniture and design. But I knew nothing about designing or making furniture.”
Interest and ignorance led Heltzer to courses in sculpture and metal working at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he picked up the requisite technical know-now (along with faculty member and sculptor Joe Litzenberger, now Heltzer’s product engineer.) A little artistic license took him further.
“I created a group of furniture models that were about 6 inches tall. I photographed them against white sheets so that you couldn’t read the scale at all, made a brochure, took them out as product, and actually sold them. Then I had to figure out how to have the pieces made.”
He finally figured it out and his classic, contemporary-styled, 50-plus collection now ranges from an indoor/outdoor line made primarily of stainless steel and teak to an upholstered line called Sophie, named after his Hungarian dog, and a woven metal collection made of bronze and copper.
The true beauty of his mixed-material furniture is that most can be used indoors and out.
“Our furniture strives to achieve a balance between hand and machine, modern technology and hand-craftsmanship, elegance and durability,” says Heltzer.
Chicago interior designer Helen Farim calls Heltzer’s collection Bauhaus-like. “One of the reasons I like them (Heltzer’s pieces) is that they can be placed in many different environments,” she says. “They’re not trendy, they’re not funky. When I think of Michael’s stuff, I think of the Bauhaus.”
His designs, Heltzer says, are influenced by music, airplanes and cars-“all the things guys like.”
Starting over
When he quit his legal career, Heltzer took a Logan Square apartment for $180 a month (with heat and a roommate) and launched his business from a studio in a North Side factory he was helping to renovate.
“In the initial stages of the company, people made a leap of faith and bought the product, not knowing if I’d be a top manufacturer in five years or if that piece of furniture would end up being just something they bought from a kid hawking his wares,” says Heltzer.
He attributes much of his early success to a series of “happy accidents.”
After he quit law, he had access to a wood and metal shop to practice on his designs and he chanced upon-and bought for $250,000-a former 16,000-square-foot candy factory, which the Chicago Historical Society was selling.
He put together a production team who were not only skilled at manufacturing but were artists as well.
“I kept pushing toward the beautifully manufactured product rather than the individual, handcrafted piece,” Heltzer says of his furniture concept. “And the product had to be as good from a function standpoint as it did from a design standpoint. I didn’t want to make a piece of furniture with three legs that looked like it could strangle you if you sat on it.”
Today, Heltzer’s line is carried by showrooms here and in New York, Houston, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami and Cleveland.
And, he received Interior Design magazine’s Roscoe award for residential design (the highest industry award given to furniture designers) in 1992 and was a runner-up in 1993.
The final result
There’s a classical look to Heltzer’s granite-topped, stainless steel nightstand (with a drawer that swings toward the bed) and bed of wicker-like woven bronze. His oversized sofas and chairs, barely contained by a barrel-like frame, are almost comical-but very comfy. A steel and maple side chair, carries a kind of calligraphic elegance; the sleek, steel and teak garden chaise longue looks like a fine machine.
While attention from such trade publications as Interior Design helped boost the firm’s profile, it’s the product that brings in customers.
Robert Coury, a salesman at Holly Hunt Ltd. showroom in Minneapolis notes, “Nobody does anything like Michael. First of all, it’s perfect quality. And you never get perfect quality, regardless of price. I think that’s because he manufactures his own product. He’s there every day. . . . I can’t think of another designer at his level in a hands-on position like that.”
So who’s buying? “Very definitely a purist,” says Coury, “Someone who has a few, really incredible things rather than a lot of furniture. This product isn’t glitzy. It’s extremely simple, with such a beautiful use of material and a real design integrity to it.”
Chicago architect George Larson turned to Heltzer when he needed outdoor furniture for a 7,500-square-foot residence he designed in Glencoe. “In terms of outdoor furniture,” says Larson, “we (architects) don’t have many things in the marketplace to choose from. Michael’s designs were the perfect solution to the problem.”
Across the pond
Last fall, a group of Dutch investors approached Heltzer at the New Art Forms Show (a decorative arts exhibition held annually in Chicago) about his furniture.
This fall, Etienne-Heltzer Design showroom opens in The Hague, the seat of government of The Netherlands. The showroom, which will resemble a gallery-showroom, will feature 12 of Heltzer’s best designs, including his nightstand and chaise.
The Dutch, says Heltzer, are attracted to his products because of their European influences and Scandinavian quality.
Heltzer, who lives, literally, above the shop, with his wife, Elizabeth, and 5-month-old son, Henry, exudes a genuine, entrepreneurial excitement over his new career. “It’s a life’s work. . . . I don’t want to sound like a Nike commerical, but life can be short, so when it comes to choosing a profession, you have to do what you like to do.”
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Heltzer Furniture Design is at 4853 N. Ravenswood Ave.; 312-561-5612. Showroom hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Prices range from around $500 for end tables or chairs to $7,000 for a dining room table.
