THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702220253
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM HOLDEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 215 lines
He is 73 years old now, well past his prime and no longer active in the daily mission of putting a couch in every Hampton Roads home. He winters on Turnbury Island, a gated community of affluence off the shores of Miami where his schedule belies the advancing years.
In his day, Leonard R. Strelitz, furniture mogul, prolific board member, prodigious contributor to social causes, created a company that dwarfed the competition.
It grew on the strength of his steely business acumen and ubiquitous television and newspaper ads that promised the sale of the season, the sale of the decade, the sale to end all sales. Bring no money. Make no down payment.
In time, Haynes Furniture blossomed into a furniture powerhouse, capturing 25 percent of a local market notable for its fearsome competition. In recent years that percentage has slipped to 19 percent, yet it still is nearly twice as large as the next biggest local competitor, Grand Discount Furniture Stores.
Its mark extends well beyond South Hampton Roads, with sales of furniture and home furnishings topping $241 million a year.
Last year the Virginia Beach-based Haynes Furniture ranked 40th nationwide out of roughly 30,500 furniture stores, an improvement from its 1995 position of 44th, according to Furniture/Today, a trade publication.
Now retirement looms for the crafty pitchman who, with the help of his brother, Joseph Strelitz, and their associate, Thomas L. Hofheimer, created a warehouse approach to retail sales that transformed how furniture is sold in South Hampton Roads.
``I've been doing this for over 50 years,'' Strelitz said last week. ``I think I deserve a pass. I've had second and third thoughts about retiring. It has not been an easy decision.''
Furniture defined Strelitz's life. And when he secured his position as an industry leader, he turned to philanthropy, rasing millions for the United Jewish Appeal, helping create the Diabetes Institutes in Norfolk, while also lending a hand to such diverse institutions as Norfolk State University and DePaul Medical Center.
But to the old masters of the trade, the name Strelitz always will be one that means furniture.
``Because of his sharpness, it made my job easier by trying to keep up with him,'' said Jerry H. Stein, president and CEO of Grand Discount Furniture Stores. Stein and Strelitz are old acquaintances.
``Staying up with Leonard is a real task,'' he said. ``He is a real furniture man, no question about it. I found him to be a fierce but good competitor. We had to stay on our toes in order to make a living and be aggressive like he was.
``You'd better know what you're doing if you want to stay in the same league with him.''
Strelitz grew up in Norfolk, attended Maury High School, but later graduated from Greenbrier Military Academy in 1940. With the war in Europe under way, the tall, skinny kid reported for duty with an Army coast artillery battalion. One day he got hurt playing football in a pickup game - he injured a nerve near his hip - and ended up in the military police for about two years hauling German prisoners of war from Fort Edwards, Mass., to internment camps along the Eastern Seaboard.
For a man who would later become a prominent fund-raiser for the United Jewish Appeal, it was only by chance that he did not know what horrors Germans had visited upon European Jewry.
``We had personal contact with them, but I could not speak German and we really didn't know what was going on,'' he said. ``Our job was to go through the rail cars and check for weapons. We spoke to them but through a translator. I didn't know until later what had happened in Germany.
``Since I didn't know then it's hard to predict what I would have done. We had our rules and regulations, after all. The prisoners sat for long hours. Most of the time they were sleeping.''
Almost from the beginning of his adult life, Strelitz has sold furniture. His father, Ellis, a soft drink salesman, bought L.D. Haynes' household goods shop on Church Street in 1921 and immediately brought his sons into the business after the war ended. It remains a family-run business.
His son, E.J. Strelitz, is president of the company while the elder Strelitz is CEO. His son-in-law, David Brand, is executive vice president in charge of The Dump and of the rugs and carpet divisions of Haynes.
``I got right away into the furniture business,'' the senior Strelitz said. ``I felt I didn't have any other choice. I was not skilled in anything at the time and here was what I thought was the right thing. So that's what happened. You have to learn, or you're out.''
In those days, Haynes Furniture was a small affair. As a young man, Leonard Strelitz was involved in most aspects of the business: waiting on customers, making the sales pitch, checking customer credit, arranging shipping.
``I had to do it all,'' he said. ``Today it's completely different. I've been through all stages of it, so guys can't tell me what's fair or unfair, because I've done it. It's great to have experienced all phases of it. Now the business is compartmentalized with computers and all that. You really have to trust others.''
In 1953, while on a business trip to Columbus, Ohio, Strelitz met Joyce Hofheimer, a native of Bexley, Ohio, a quiet suburban enclave on the city's east side. They married soon afterward at the Winding Hollow Country Club and have been together for 44 years.
``I think that says a lot.''
From the beginning, the Strelitz brothers and Hofheimer believed they could dominate the market with an array of styles, competitive pricing, low overhead costs, quick delivery and an unrelenting advertising campaign. But finding the right set of opportunities would take time.
Strelitz's ambition was derailed in 1968 when he was diagnosed with diabetes type II, a disorder involving carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism that usually is the result of the inability of the pancreas to secrete insulin.
He was in the Sinai Desert in Israel on a mission for the United Jewish Appeal when he was diagnosed with the disorder by his personal physician, who was along for the trip.
``It saps your energy to some extent,'' he said. ``But you have to roll with the punches. Everyone has a hand they're dealt with, and you have to play that hand.''
It was not until 1970 that Haynes settled on the warehouse showroom concept as a way to centralize management, reduce shipping expenses and promote cost-cutting volume buying and selling.
Haynes opened its signature, 358,000 square-foot building on Virginia Beach Boulevard in 1973 with the help of $3.5 million in tax-free revenue bonds from the city of Virginia Beach. And the race was on to dominate. The massive store, which is a landmark on the busy boulevard, was in position to cash in on the explosive growth that would consume South Hampton Roads in the 1980s.
One of Strelitz' fortes was in buying close-outs, said Stein Mart's Jerry Stein, who has 50 years in the business.
``He would go to one factory and buy every chair they had, chairs they weren't moving,'' Stein said. ``Then he'd go to another and buy every table they had but weren't moving. And he'd put them together and have a nice set. We made attempts to follow that type of buying and it paid off.''
But it was not easy, and the struggles that followed would test Strelitz's determination.
On Oct. 29, 1984, Joseph ``Buddy'' Strelitz suffered a heart attack and died aboard a commercial jet en route to New York. He was 56. Five months later, Hofheimer succumbed to cancer. He was 50.
``It was devastating,'' Strelitz said. ``They were two pillars. You try to run a business through good delegation of people. Tom was my right arm; Buddy was the left.''
Their deaths affected him deeply, but it was not the first time that he bore such a burden.
``My father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease when I was a boy,'' he said. ``In 1959, he choked to death at home. He wasn't wearing his (dental) bridge. I was very close to my father; so were my brothers. We had a terrible time then.
``Fortunately, as I look back, one of the things that kept me going was the business,'' he added. ``I was in business and busy. I tried not to think about it and that way it didn't penetrate 100 percent.
``Business can become a blessing sometimes,'' he said.
The blessings of business that kept him focused through personal tragedy also came in the the form of his well-known philanthropy. Strelitz has a long career of community involvement and continues to serve as the chairman of the Diabetes Institutes Foundation and on the boards of the Tidewater Jewish Foundation and the United Jewish Foundation of Tidewater. He has served on the Norfolk State University board and was general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal in 1977-78.
``He's generous. He's kind. He's a good friend. He's someone who people can go to and tell their story and he will listen,'' said Edythe C. Harrison, the founding president of the Virginia Opera. ``He was responsible for soliciting the lead gift to make the Harrison Opera House what it is. In Jewish philanthropy I could not begin to name all the things he has done.''
Strelitz has many admirers who gush about his philanthropy and ability to get important community projects done. Another is Edward E. Brickell, the president of Eastern Virginia Medical School.
``The family supports and sponsors any number of causes. The Diabetes Institutes would not be here without Leonard's support.''
Brickell, himself widely regarded for his work when he was superintendent of the Virginia Beach School system as well as his efforts to strengthen the medical school, lavished praise on his old friend.
``Leonard is Leonard. He's an original,'' Brickell said. ``He has his own way of doing things. He's not a shy and retiring man, not a shrinking violet. But he's been in a tough world and obviously done exceedingly well. You don't do that by sitting back and hoping that someone will just walk in the front door.
``If you happen to get in his way, you ought not holler when things happen. He's aggressive. I suspect it comes from living and working in a competitive world.''
One reason that Strelitz is successful is that he understands business and has a thorough command of business principles, Brickell said.
``He has an excellent grasp of Virginia politics. He's got friends in every aspect of life.''
Strelitz and his family are active contributors to political campaigns today, having given Sen. Chuck Robb, D-Va., $6,500 in his latest campaign, while also giving Sen. John Warner, R-Va., $5,500.
Despite his political and philanthropic sides, it's business that Strelitz is best known for. But even his business skills failed him on occasion.
The most notable example was Lake Ridge, an ambitious dream of a Virginia Beach developer who cobbled together influential businessmen and lawyers to build a 1,200 acre mini-city north of the Virginia Beach municipal complex.
The deal soured - the victim of a worsening real estate market in the mid-1980s - and everyone ended up in court, including Strelitz, whose children had a 14 percent stake in the project through BEB Associates. Strelitz himself put in 1 percent.
Even today, five years after the deal fell apart, Strelitz doesn't like to talk about it.
``My father taught me years ago don't get into anything that you can't afford to take a loss on and that's an example,'' he said. ``If you don't take some chances in life, then you won't really accomplish much.''
Looking back on his work and life, Strelitz sees a much-changed Hampton Roads community. There are more furniture stores than ever. Competition is tough, and many expect another round of growth when the Lake Gaston pipeline is completed and running.
But what bothers him most of all is the area's continuing inability to act as a coordinated region.
``Not being able to form a metro system is the biggest problem we face today,'' he said. ``The spirit of cooperation is not there. There is too much fighting, envy and all of that. I spend a lot of time here in the Miami metro system, in south Florida. And its regional approach has paid off.
``I think the first thing they have to do here, the area's mayors and councils, is they've got to pull together. That's the only way I see growth continuing and multiplying. Pretty much everything stems from the cooperation of the cities.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Leonard R. Strelitz
KEYWORDS: PROFILE