Arts&Life

at home

continued from page 49

one brand. Six years 
later, Floyd has grown to 
a 30-person team with 
four core products for 
the home — the shelf, 
the sofa, the bed and the 
tables, all grown from the 
original product — the 
leg — plus hardware, 
accessories and lighting 
with plans for much 
more.
“We like to go deep 
on one product per cat-
egory,” Hoff says. “We’
ve 
grown every year on the 
initial product, and there’
s a lot more that 
we want to do applying the same design 
principles.”
Adds O’
Dell, “
A tenet of our design ethos 
is that every product we put out into the 
world needs to be long lasting.
“We began Floyd out of a reaction to 
disposable furniture and the 9.9 million 
tons of furniture that end up in landfills 
in the U.S. every year. Designed to last for 
us means high-quality materials, modular 
designs that can evolve with your needs 
over time, easy assembly and disassembly, 
and timeless design that doesn’
t follow 
fashion trends.”

In addition, Floyd, primarily an online 
seller, has showrooms in major cities across 
the country. Putting his entrepreneurial 
degree to work, Hoff has Floyd partnering 
with Airbnb, furnishing rooms and homes 
in some of their favorite structures, all 
with stunning architecture, great design 
and incredible locations — Portland, Ore., 
Montauk, N.Y., and Leland, Mich., among 
them.
Just last month, Floyd partnered with 
West Elm, with store-in-store displays 
and sales in key stores across the country, 
including its Birmingham location. 
Floyd has grown as Detroit’
s economy 
has begun to bounce back, and Hoff is 
very happy to be witnessing its ever-chang-
ing climb. Today, he lives in a classically 
minimalist home designed by modernist 
architect Mies van der Rohe in Detroit’
s 
Lafayette Park with his wife, Brooke — who 
he began dating in high 
school back in Youngstown 
— and their 5-month-old 
daughter, Henni (named 
after Brooke’
s late grand-
father Henry Kinast, a 
Holocaust survivor.)
“We go to services at the 
Downtown Synagogue, 
sometimes the Chabad 
House,” Hoff says. “But we’
re 
still shopping for a home.”
Ever-busy with Floyd, 
Hoff says the company is 
building out a new research 
and development lab in its 
Eastern Market location and says sales have 
grown by 100 percent year-over-year with-
in the last three years.
“We’
re a customer-centric furniture 
brand,” O’
Dell says. “Before we kick off the 
design of any new product, we send a sur-
vey out to customers and receive thousands 
of responses in the first few days. People 
love participating, and it allows us to bring 
products into the world that will connect 
with real customer needs.”
Adds Hoff, “Furniture should be made 
for the home, not the landfill. Floyd furni-
ture is furniture for keeping.” 

“Furniture 
should be made 
for the home, 
not the landfi
 ll. 
Floyd furniture 
is furniture for 

keeping.”

— KYLE HOFF

COURTESY OF FLOYD

COURTESY OF FLOYD
BRETT MOUNTAIN

50 | DECEMBER 12 • 2019 

FROM TOP: The Floyd 
shop-in-shop with 
West Elm. A Stay Floyd 
Airbnb in Portland, Ore., 
featuring the Floyd bed 
with headboard and 
underbed drawer caddy 
attached. The Floyd 
Sofa and Floyd Tables