A Look Inside Curtis Furniture with Andrew Reynolds
Design Insider is pleased to share our conversation with Andrew Reynolds, Managing Director at Curtis Furniture, focusing on the company’s role in the UK hotel furniture sector. Our Editor explored Curtis Furniture’s history, its approach to manufacturing, and its future prospects.
Andrew describes Curtis’s beginnings in Leeds over 25 years ago and its development into a company known for quality and bespoke hotel furniture. He highlights Curtis’s advantage in the commercial sector, noting its comprehensive in-house manufacturing process that controls quality and costs. Sustainability is a key part of Curtis’s operations, with Andrew discussing environmental measures in their production process, including LED lighting and sustainable material sourcing. The interview offers insights into Curtis’s design process, its collaborative efforts with clients, and its commitment to sustainability, providing a look into the commercial furniture design industry’s future.
Please could you introduce yourself and your role?
Andrew Reynolds, Managing Director, Curtis Furniture
My name is Andrew Reynolds and I am the Managing Director at Curtis Furniture.
Could you tell me about the heritage of Curtis?
Curtis have been making furniture for UK hotels, here in Leeds, for over 25 years. Our first client was Thistle hotels and we still work with, what is now the Clermont Hotel Group, today. We moved to our current factory almost 10 years ago and in that period we have extended the size of our production facility three times.
What sets Curtis apart in the commercial sector?
Curtis manufacturing facility
We manufacture our furniture here in Leeds and have the facilities to do every process in house. From veneering & drilling to polishing we can not only maintain a tight grip on costs but essentially we control our quality. Curtis also have a team of project managers who are responsible for looking after the client and their project from point of order. So when those unavoidable changes or unforeseen events happen during the build or fit-out process, we provide the client with a point of contact to help manage the issues.
New Curtis branding and website
Making lovely furniture is only half the story. Sites are critical and, recognising this, Curtis employ their own team of installation managers who are physically on site to ensure that both the distribution and installation of the furniture goes to plan. We also recognise that the fit out of a new hotel or the refurbishment of an existing hotel is a team event. Our installation managers ensure that our installation teams work in tandem with the contractors, their site managers and the other trades.
Could you talk me through 3 key projects you’ve supplied?
Curtis are currently on site at the Marriott Hotel at Manchester Gateway where we are manufacturing and installing 350 bedrooms. Curtis worked closely with the client and their design team in developing a unique metal framed open wardrobe system which complements the hand stained slip matched oak veneers throughout the room. We are really pleased to be working for this client for the fourth time.
Marriott Hotel at Manchester Gateway
We were selected to manufacture and install the bedroom furniture for HGI Lancashire Cricket Club following the client’s visit to our factory. The client’s team were able to see our full production capabilities and also visit the full size mock up room here in our building. Curtis have worked closely with Hilton for the last three years to develop the new bedrooms for Hilton brands: Hampton, HGI, Motto and the new Home 2. The result is four beautiful full scale bedroom and bathroom mock up rooms here in our factory.
Sample room for Hilton Garden Inn
The owners of The Other House in South Kensington searched extensively for the right furniture partners for their first hospitality venture. They had developed an upscale, design led, aparthotel concept and the execution of the furniture was critical to delivering this vision. Due to their commitment to sustainability, the client was looking for an established UK manufacturer, who could not only deliver on the scale of their project, but could also support their design team in the development and prototyping of the unique pieces. We are delighted to have manufacture not only the bedroom furniture but also the kitchens, screening, sofas and chairs for the 236 room project.
The Other House in South Kensington
How do you develop your products? Could you introduce us to some of your design/production team?
Whilst virtually every project we do is for bespoke furniture there are often key themes that run through the furniture. Upon receipt of the client’s instruction we come together as a team to launch the project and discuss each individual piece in detail. With representatives from production, design, sales, purchasing and project management in the meeting we typically have over 50 years of knowledge around that table.
Curtis production
Key to the process is collaboration with the client and their designers. This starts out as requests for final information and is quickly followed by both finish samples and, crucially, full mock up rooms. Sometimes these rooms are on the clients site, other times we build the full room set here in our factory.
Curtis production and material selection
How does your company address sustainability and what are your sustainability targets?
Sustainability is woven into the fabric of our building and continues through to our packaging. Curtis factory has been fitted with a state of the art LED lighting system that not only has movement detectors but also dims automatically when the daylight coming through our roof panels is brighter. Our extraction system to an individual machine cuts off automatically as soon as it is not in use. The boards we use are from sustainable FSC sources and our packaging has been continually developed to reduce volume. Beyond all of the above, the fact that we manufacture our products here in Yorkshire means that the furniture we make travels a fraction of the distance to a site than items imported from either Europe or Asia.
Curtis design process
What does the future hold for Curtis?
25 years in and we are more excited than ever. Our business has grown over these years on the back of one principle: Look after the clients and they will return. Our new brochure is littered with photos of projects that we are doing for long established clients, many of whom have come to Curtis more than 10 times for their furniture.
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