•

Up From The Ashes

Bruce Selik
inside the new
Hillside
Furniture."

Hillside Furniture's owner wrangles with insurance companies and keeps
his employees on the payroll after a fire devastated the 24-year-old business.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR

Special to The Jewish News

T

\-/-\

he call that radically
changed Bruce Selik's life
came at 5:45 a.m. Sept. 11.
Firefighters from
Bloomfield Township wanted him to
open his store, Hillside Furniture at
Square Lake and Woodward, so they
could fight a fire in a neighboring
bagel shop.
Selik was on the scene in five min-
utes and spent the next 12 hours
watching the store destroyed despite
firefighters' attempts to save the build-
ing.
"I don't get emotional about it now,
especially in the new store," he said.
"But I cried a lot that day."
It would have been easy to perma-
nently board up his 24-year-old busi-
ness and cash out his insurance claims.
But after greeting insurance adjusters
and employees who came to survey
the mess, Selik, wearing a surgical
mask to protect his lungs, stood in his

damaged store and launched "a plan to
retain his site, his employees and his
customers.
"I immediately sat down with my
wife Terri, my son Jeff, and my vice
president, John Paniccia, who has
been with me for 19 years," said Selik,
who started selling furniture straight
out of college. "I said, 'I think what
we have to do is establish a presence
here.' And that's what we did."
After the insurance people left,
work crews came in to remove smoke-
and water-damaged furniture floor
samples, tear down walls and ceilings,
rip up carpeting. Everything from
computers to phones, from light fix-
tures to Formica, had to be removed
due to the lingering stench of smoke.
In total, the fire next door caused
$750,000 in damage.
"The fire was so intense that it
melted the steel ceiling supports and
the brick on the side of the building,"
Selik said.
But he wasn't about to leave the
building. A long-term relationship

with the landlord, Arie Leibovitz of
Ari-El Enterprises in Southfield, and
name recognition tied into the busy
Square Lake Road - Woodward
Avenue intersection kept Selik in
place.
"I think it is a two-way street," said
Leibovitz. "If you have a good tenant,
you make it as easy as you can for
them to stay."
The tenant and the landlord
worked together to reconfigure the
store's shape. About 5,000 square feet
from the south side of the furniture
store was given back to the landlord
and an additional 8,000 square feet
was acquired when Hillside took over
the gutted bagel store. The result was
a larger, rectangular-shaped show-
room.
While the work crews labored away,
Selik called a meeting of Hillside's 18
employees in his Bloomfield Hills
home. Instead of layoff notices, Selik
promised to keep his employees on
salary while the store was rebuilt. In
exchange, they agreed to fewer hours

and less-than-ideal temporary working
conditions.
"I explained to everyone what the
process was going to be, that it would
be a different scenario than they were
used to," he said. All of the employees
agreed to stay.
For that loyalty, "they got paid as if
they were all making bonuses," he said.
'And I am glad I did it. To build a store
and not have a professional team ... I
don't think that would happen.
"I knew I had a great staff and did-
n't want to lose them," he said.
Selik is not the only CEO to put
the welfare of his employees first. After
a nearly identical fire wiped out
Malden Mills (maker of Polartec out-
door wear) in December 1995, CEO
Aaron Feuerstein kept his employees
on the payroll while he rebuilt the fac-
tory near Lowell, Mass., an area hard
hit by the southern migration of busi-
nesses and factories.
Feuerstein was honored for his
actions by President Clinton during
the 1996 State of the Union address.

7/31

1998

Detroit Jewish News 1.17