The Los Angeles Spirit

Barker Brothers Corp., one of the world's biggest house-furnishing stores, is admitted by its competitors to be the finest existing example of "The Los Angeles Spirit." This spirit is compact of two things which Southern Californians love: 1) a gaudy, glittery Hollywood veneer; 2) a loud, high-pressure sales technique. Barker's had shown this spirit so effectively that last week, despite the acute wartime shortages of furniture, the company said its 1944 gross would be $15,500,000, the highest since 1927.

In keeping with the Hollywood motif, Barker's has a lobby which is a replica of a Moorish palace. Customers are seined in by a sales dragnet formed of all Barker employes (even janitors get commissions). They are further tracked down by means of a 15-ft. map of the city on which pins show new homeowners; other variously colored pins mark every major purchase at Barker's (gold if Barker's furnishes everything).

Petree Up, Barker's Down. The strategist behind Barker Brothers is a square-faced, well-nosed Scotch-Irishman named Neil Petree, 46, who collects $65,000 a year for his ideas. Born in Missouri, Neil entered Stanford University in 1915, took nearly two years out to go to war, came back and crammed hard enough to graduate with his class in 1919. By the time he was 28, Petree was managing San Francisco's big Hale Brothers department store, at 33 was president of James McCreery & Co. in New York.

While Petree was going up, Barker's was going down. From 1932 to 1934 it lost $1,347,000. It was still shaky when Petree went west in 1937 to see the Rose Bowl game, stayed on as the new president of Barker's. Petree saw the company's ills as characteristic of the furniture business--too little originality in designing and selling furniture.

Petree thought it a mistake to wait for customers to come in. So he set up a force of "public relations" men who checked daily on new building permits. They interviewed home builders before the ground was broken, often got them to let Barker's supply everything from paring knives to bedroom suites, at prices for every pocket. Tables cost as little as $10, as much as $750.

Out Radios, In Bars. When war shortages came, Petree moved fast. As Barker's sold its last radio, Petree asked his employes for suggestions on how to use the empty floor space. One suggested selling small portable bars made of non-strategic materials. Now, in the flashy Red Elephant Room, bar sales are grossing the company nearly $250,000 a year. The markup is 50%--far greater than on radios. When pianos disappeared, Petree scoured the East for antiques, fixed them up, sold them at handsome profits.

Petree's program has helped the lusty Los Angeles furniture business vie with that of Grand Rapids. But Petree, bubbling with such ideas as mass sales of prefabricated homes, thinks it is just the beginning. Said he: "We can hardly wait for the war to be over."

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