DECEMBER 12 • 2019 | 49
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I
n 2013, the city of Detroit filed for the
largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S.
history. It was the same week Kyle
Hoff decided to move to the Motor City
to launch a new business.
After studying architecture and entre-
preneurship at the University of Miami,
Ohio, then earning a master’
s at the
University of Michigan, he had been bid-
ing his time at a low-rung position at an
architectural firm in Chicago.
“I’
ve wanted to pursue architecture
since I was a kid, when my parents
took me to see Frank Lloyd Wright’
s
Fallingwater, which was not far from
where I grew up,” says Hoff, 32, a
Youngstown, Ohio, native.
“When I got out of school, I found
the profession of architecture was pretty
marginalized at that time. It was hard to
see projects through from concept to the
finish line. I started becoming interested
in the idea of building furniture that was
affordable, transportable, adaptable and
lasting.”
Having furnished a handful of various
apartments as a student at two schools
and then living in Chicago, he says, “there
wasn’
t a lot of well-designed furniture
for people like me, living a somewhat
nomadic lifestyle and moving several
times — and having to deal with dispos-
ing of cheap furniture or dealing with
Craigslist.
“There has been a cultural shift in the
last 25 years, with places like Ikea and
Target becoming the go-to,” Hoff says.
“I wanted to change how people were
consuming and enjoying furniture. When
I was living in Chicago, I found myself
going to the suburbs to buy furniture.
And the thoughtfulness wasn’
t there.”
Soon after, a friend was launching a
start-up (now defunct) in Detroit, and
he convinced Hoff to move to the city to
help him, along with another friend, Alex
O’
Dell. Hoff and O’
Dell, who lived in the
same Corktown building as Hoff, became
fast friends.
“The state of Michigan is steeped in
furniture history,” Hoff says. “La-Z-Boy
[whose founding brothers pioneered the
design of the reclining wood-slat chair
in 1927], Charles and Ray Eames [the
husband-and-wife team that created the
predecessor to their history-changing
bent plywood chairs to carry injured
soldiers during WWII], Herman Miller,
Eliel Saarinen [who designed Cranbrook’
s
Saarinen House]. The Eames Fiberglass-
shell chair has been selling for 60 years.
You can find it being taught in a school
and the same day see it in a modern
home in Los Angeles. It’
s a very versatile
product.”
O’
Dell, a filmmaker who studied public
policy at U-M, and Hoff set to creating a
product that might have a similar design
ethos — innovative yet functional and
good-looking and well-made enough to
last, possibly for decades. They dreamed
up what would become the Floyd Leg.
The laser-cut, formed, welded and pow-
der-coated furniture leg was named
after Hoff’
s father, grandfather and
great-grandfather, all metal workers in
Ohio and all named Floyd.
Their friends loved it. So, the pair
launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund
a market testing of the leg, which could
easily be turned into a table with any flat
surface. Their funding goal of $18,000
was surpassed in a few days, and Hoff
and O’
Dell received a total of $256,273
over the month it was live. They delivered
on the product two months later.
CORE PRODUCTS
The pair launched Floyd (floydhome.
com) the same year, 2013, with a small
showroom in Detroit’
s Eastern Market,
with the company designing, manufac-
turing and selling furniture itself under
Floyd furnished an Airbnb in Leland,
part of its Stay Floyd partnership.
COURTESY OF FLOYD
A desk at the
Floyd showroom
BRETT MOUNTAIN
Designers’
approach to furniture means creating
well-made, functional, long-lasting pieces destined
to be a household name.
LYNNE KONSTANTIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
“It’
s A Floyd!”