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Phildelphia Story

A love of history does not mean Old School ways of doing business at Arch Street Lighting. Even contemporary lighting finds a home among antiques in this historic building.

BY LINDA LONGO

Mike Kurland is a lighting historian, though he probably wouldn’t describe himself that way. But how else to explain the twinkle in his eye and eagerness in his voice when he comes across an old dimmer, a vintage electrical switch, or a relic of a light bulb? This man gets excited whenever he sees a piece of electrical history, pure and simple. He’s a born-and-bred lighting guy – and several display cases housing his personal collection prove it.
     Born into the family electrical supply business, he was sweeping the floors of Harry Horn Electrical Supply in Philadelphia at age eight and waiting on customers when not in school. Likewise, Kurland’s late father, Irv, also grew up in the business. Irv’s father (Harry Horn) began his lighting career selling gas mantels for his uncle’s store on South Street. When his uncle died in 1914, Horn took over the business and changed the name to Harry Horn Electric.
     By 1928, Horn decided to try his hand at manufacturing newel post lamps, and sold the store to his brother-in-law, Dave Teacher, who re-named the store Teacher Electric. Then the crash of ’29 hit the country hard, and entrepreneurs certainly hardest of all. Horn gave up manufacturing and went back to his strong suit: retail. Coincidentally, the storefront next door to Teacher Electric was available and Horn moved in and started up his retail business again under the name Harry Horn Electric Supply. For years, the brothers-in-law operated side-by-side businesses in harmony.
     Irv Kurland entered his father’s business in 1932, working part-time at the electrical supply store and holding down two other part-time jobs while attending Temple University. Over the next 35 years, Irv learned the ins and outs of the business. When his father Harry died in 1967, Irv was able to make a seamless transition at the helm.
     Dave Teacher died in 1969 and his business, which he had sold to one of his employees, closed five years later. Harry Horn Electric Supply took over the vacant space and expanded the business. Over the decades, the store enjoyed a golden reputation, especially among builders of pre-fabricated homes in the 1950s. Builders from as far away as Ohio preferred to do business with the Philadelphia showroom, which boasted an unusual layout. Due to continual growth, the Harry Horn space eventually encompas-sed 13,000 square feet with the two storefronts (now combined as one) plus five additional buildings that were connected, handy for warehousing inventory. “The original building was built in the 1800s as a mission, which is why there was a pool in the basement and a basketball court upstairs,” Kurland states.
     Despite having lighting DNA in his genetic make-up, Mike Kurland swears it was not his intention to make it his career. He majored in Accounting at Temple University and accepted a job in New York City shortly after graduating, hired by one of the Big 8 accounting firms (Haskin & Sells) at that time. Married in 1970 to his college sweetheart, Marcia, the newlyweds traveled to Queens to find a place to live before he started his new job in Manhattan. Once there, however, the Kurlands quickly discovered that they liked Philadelphia city life better and moved back.
     With an eye toward applying his accounting degree to the family business, Kurland approached his father and his uncle Adolph Horn about buying into their electrical supply company, starting with a 20-percent initial stake in the business and incremental increases over time. Irv Kurland handled the supply house operations while Adolph served as the outside salesman. Soon, Mike Kurland began doing a little bit of everything at the store, from waiting on customers at the supply counter to taking respon-sibility for the 500-sq.-ft. showroom portion and making all of the fixture purchasing decisions.
     In the 1970s, the showroom area predominately featured cast brass fixtures from Spain. “I had more fixtures hanging in that 500 square feet of display space than I do here in my new showroom [at more than triple the space],” Kurland says, pointing out how the philosophy of displaying product has changed over the years.

A Smooth Transition
“My father gave me a lot of leverage when I came into the business,” he states. Irv maintained a hands-off attitude when it came to his son’s handling of the showroom even if he didn’t agree. “He would say, ‘I don’t know what he’s doing, but it’s working,’” he recalls. “He was never overbearing and he didn’t second-guess my decisions.”
     Kurland appreciated the industry knowledge that his father imparted as well as the family values in operating a business. They made quite a team. “My dad retired in 1987, but he was still coming into the store every day at age 78,” he notes.
     Although the company continued to be called Harry Horn Electric, there was a lot that had changed over the 17 years since Kurland took the reigns. In 1988, he hired a consultant to develop a comput-erized system that streamlined the bookkeeping and kept the pricing consistent. “It was one of the best things I ever did,” he states.
     One of the aspects that remained the same amidst the generational change of leadership was the staff. “One employee was with us for 53 years; another one stayed for 30 years; and some others were there for 20+ years,” Kurland says of the 13-person staff he inherited.
     For many in Philadelphia – from long-time customers to employees – Harry Horn Electric was an institution. When the company reached its 75th anniversary, the PE Building with its illumin-ated, moving signage (which can be seen all over the city), paid tribute with a Happy 75th Anniversary message – the first time a com-mercial establishment was ever recognized by the famous sign-board.
     Just as Harry Horn and his son Irv loved to be a part of the store into their twilight years, the same was true for their friends. In fact, for many years after Mike took over, a friend of Harry’s who lived nearby would visit every morning. “He was in his 80s, but he’d see the lights go on in the store at 6:00 a.m., and he’d come over to put on some coffee and sweep the floor for us,” Kurland comments.
      Times, They Are A’Changing
Besides computerization, the late 1980s also brought increased competition. “Once a Home Depot opened up, there were certain products that we offered as an electrical supply house – such as rocker switches – that never sold again,” he says.
     Adept at sensing the winds of change, Kurland hired a salesperson to court commercial business, mainly high-rises and office buildings in Philadelphia. “A lot of our customers were the property management companies and hospitality specifiers. Our business became 70-percent commercial. As a result, not only did Harry Horn Electric join the Philadelphia Building Superintendents’ Association as a member, but Kurland attended virtually every meeting.
     His willingness to “try anything once” also landed the business with the coveted Eagle Award from GE for innovative marketing techniques. “I came up with the idea to have a Grand Prix race inside the showroom. In the upstairs basketball court of the old building, I created a race track for model cars,” Kurland explains. Not just a straight track, of course, but one that curved around boxes of inventory, ran under ramps and storage bins, into bathrooms, and spanned the different buildings. Customers who purchased a certain amount of GE products were eligible to race the radio-controlled car around the homemade track, fashioned with the help of red duct tape. “The customer with the fastest time around the track won,” he notes. The contest ran for approx-imately two months and was promoted through telemarketing as well as promotional flyers and displays on the sales counter.
     The winner of two airline tickets to anywhere in the U.S. was announced at a dinner hosted by Harry Horn Electric for everyone who participated. “We videotaped every customer race and showed the videos, with the winner’s tape being shown last,” he says. All of the contest’s participants had a blast, but perhaps no one enjoyed each race or the resulting festivities as much as Kurland. After all, he is a store owner who enjoys his customers so much that he is known for taking their photos and posting the snapshots on a bulletin board in the store for all to see.
     Another one of Kurland’s marketing ideas was a contest for the customer who could bring in the oldest Harry Horn sales receipt. The winner – who held onto a sales receipt from 1944 – received a new TV.

Time for More Change
With the advent of the home centers came more intense competition for electrical supply houses, even ones fortunate enough to count several generations of customers. After decades of being the best-known store in town, and one that customers would travel great distances to visit, the late 1990s brought even more players to the electrical supply field. “It was hard to compete with a store that had 10 branches,” Kurland comments.
     Closing down the supply house operation and opening up an upscale lighting showroom instead seemed to be the best way to save the family business. Kurland gave the employ-ees plenty of notice of his plans and made sure that every employee had found another job (i.e. paying their full-time wages while they interviewed and job searched) and every vendor paid in full before shutting Harry Horn’s doors for good in 1997.
     Talk about loyalty, one employee, who had been driving the supply house’s delivery truck for 13 years, worried that Kurland was in financial trouble and offered to loan him all he had – $50,000 – to get by. Touched by his loyalty and friendship, Kurland refused, explaining that he was not in financial straits but was merely re-positioning the company to adapt to the changes facing the lighting industry.
      By first renting out the existing store space and then eventually selling all of the connected buildings, Kurland was able to amass the funds to buy a new building for his dream showroom. It wasn’t a case of any place will do. He was very specific about the type of lighting showroom he envisioned and exactly where it would be located.
     “I wanted to be in ‘Old City,’” Kurland explains. Old City is the regentrified historic district of Philadelphia where a lot of art galleries, high-end/custom furniture stores, and shops specializing in handicrafts had sprung up. “I would drive around the neighborhood looking for the perfect space to become available,” he says.
     Within six months, the wait was over. An old warehouse building that contained odd-lot clothing went on the market, and Kurland jumped at the chance. The building was constructed in the 1850s and boasted four floors of 1,800 square feet each.
     To anyone else’s eyes, it might have been hard to imagine what Kurland had in mind. The old clothing factory’s space did not look as it does now. Though he retained the original tin ceilings and maple wood floors, he knocked down plenty of walls, constructed new ones, removed the freight elevator, and broke through the second floor to install a grand staircase from scratch. True to an old-time factory, the floor gently slopes from the back of the building to the front – all the better back then for sliding containers of goods to the loading area on the streetfront. (The ceiling at the back of the showroom measures 11 feet; the entrance area at 13 feet.)
     Even more unimaginable was that Kurland insisted on doing the renovation work himself and paying for the materials out of pocket. “I wanted to open with no debt,” he explains. No one – not his wife nor his friend Phil Johnson, an artist who also does general contracting – doubted Kurland’s vision, but they were less certain about his intention of doing the transformation on his own. While he was known for dabbling in woodworking and building things as a hobby – such as the repro-duction old-fashioned refrigerator that he sells on the showroom floor – undertaking such major and extensive renovation work was feared to be beyond any hobbyist’s capabilities.
     After nearly two years of personally renovating the property, Kurland took out a small business loan to speed the re-construction process along. “At first, I was leaving Harry Horn Electric on South Street each day and then going to the Arch Street location to work on the property at night and on weekends,” he notes. After closing the store, he had more time, but it was still a monumental project. With the loan, he could bring in some professional crews to finish up.
      “Phil helped me out a lot in configuring the space and designing the displays and moulding details,” he says. In addition, Kurland consulted the owner of the interior design and upscale furniture business, Jennifer Jasuta, for decorating guidance. “I have known Jenn for about 20 years,” he states. “She used to work for designers who would come into our South Street store.”
     Kurland also credits some of his artistic vision to a Boston showroom he visited called Chimera. “I always call any lighting retailers I visit beforehand and tell them who I am, what I’m doing, and that I have a showroom of my own in Philly,” he explains. Fond of the original tin ceilings of his “new” building in Philly, Kurland was impressed with the Boston store’s use of a suspended display for recessed and pendant lighting. He immediately realized a way to adapt a similar method – using suspended copper pipe as the framework to deliberately tap into the trendy, urban industrial look – without marring the historic ceiling.
     While Kurland took out plenty of walls in the existing factory space, he also constructed new ones to serve as backdrops for displays. Each narrow, freestanding, double-sided “wall” is wired with electricity up through the floor so that sconces and wall fixtures are shown attractively (hardwired instead of either unlit or with unsightly cords) on both sides of a wall that customers can walk around.
     Another unusual display technique occurred when he noticed that the extra chain needed to hang fixtures from the 13-foot ceiling at a comfortable viewing height was confusing to customers. Some weren’t sure how much chain came with the fixture, while others perceived that they would need a chain almost as long as the fixture because that was what they saw on display.
     “I asked a woman in the neigh-borhood to make me 100 fabric cord covers to disguise the length of chain that the customer would not need. This helped them to visually isolate the fixture and the amount of chain that would typically be used,” he explains.
     The renovation yielded another unusual find. While tearing down walls near the freight elevator, Kurland uncovered some Mobil oil signs circa 1920 that were nailed to the joists to catch and prevent dirt from falling onto the factory floor. With his eye for history, he thought they might be worth something. Sure enough his enterprising daughter Joanna posted the signs on eBay and netted $500 for each one (benefiting her college expenses).
     By utilizing the address – Arch Street – in the new showroom name, Kurland put the store’s location in mind while effectively announcing to potential Philly customers (who most likely shopped at Harry Horn) that this was not a revamped version of the old electrical supply house, but something entirely new and fresh.

History Repeats Itself
Wanting to have the showroom open 6 days a week from 10-5 officially (though he is typically at work by 7:00 a.m., handling back-office duties) Kurland knew he couldn’t do it alone, yet he didn’t need a big staff. He immediately thought of someone he admired from his Harry Horn days whom he hoped could help.
     “We were the biggest distributor of Seidle Intercoms in Philadelphia,” he states. “Over time, I wasn’t a big fan of Seidle products anymore, but their rep Peggy Colman was fantastic at her job; I’d known her for 20 years. I told the company that when she leaves, I won’t buy from them anymore.” Sure enough, Colman eventually left the company to start a family and Harry Horn was no longer a customer.
     Flash forward five years later to 1997, when Kurland opened Arch Street Lighting. He looked Colman up in the phone book and asked if she was interested in coming onboard.
     “My child was five years old, and I was looking for something different career-wise to do,” notes Colman. “I always had a good rapport with Mike and he was very excited about his new showroom. And in hearing him talk about it, I then got excited about it.”
     “Where I fail, she excels and vice versa,” Kurland says of their work together. “One of the reasons we do well is that we don’t lie to each other. If either of us makes a mistake, we admit it.” That’s a trait that Arch Street Lighting’s customers appreciate as well. “When a customer buys something – anything – it begins a relationship between them and us,” he states. Something Old, Something New for Displays Kurland eschews utilizing manufacturer-branded merchandisers or displays in favor of giving the showroom unique character through unexpected finds. Hence the divider walls and suspended copper tubing as novel ways of displaying fixtures.
     Scattered among lighting products in traditional, transitional, and contem-porary styles, are antiques that Kurland has amassed over the years. For example, the 1932 steamer trunk with a lamp on it (in lieu of a more typical tabletop) belonged to Kurland’s father. “He used that trunk on his trip to Philly from Boston when he received his scholarship to Temple,” he recalls.
     A few lamps are displayed on a turn-of-the-century writing table found on a trip to Long Island. Nearly every furniture item – with the exception of his father’s steamer trunk – is tagged for sale. One wooden cabinet contains part of his light bulb collection (while the collection is not for sale, the cabinet certainly is).
     Just as he uncovers antiques in the oddest places, so too, does he find old light bulbs and switches. Some of his latest were discovered during his search for possible showroom locations among the historic buildings in Old City. “In one building from the early 1900s, I found an old light bulb and a pull-string dimmer,” he recounts. When Kurland asked the owner if he could take them, the man shrugged and gave a look that meant he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to (these vintage items now reside in the collection). Beside a cabinet displaying shades, an old Markel heater sits on the floor. Kurland doesn’t intend to sell it; he just enjoys having bits of electrical history around.
     Other furniture pieces appear to be antique, but have been purchased at major trade shows such as Dallas. Much more than serving as sizable displays for lighting, the furniture actually sells. “Someone bought seven pieces of furniture the other week,” Kurland notes. He also has a policy of not buying deep; when a piece of furniture is sold, it is replaced by another type entirely. “We have a lot of customers who come back regularly and I want the showroom to look different,” he explains. By merely replacing what sells with an exact replica, he feels that a retailer loses the aesthetic sense of novelty.
     Some of the furniture pieces used in the showroom are intentionally purchased as props that Kurland doesn’t intend to sell, but puts a price tag on just in case. Other pieces were discovered during weekend antiquing trips, while a few more have been rescued from the “dent and scratch room” of main-stream furniture stores before serving as props (i.e. the dining room table had a prior life as a floor sample at an upscale furniture showroom).
     The working kitchen demon-strates six different kinds of lighting (kick space, overhead, undercabinet, in-cabinet, fluorescent, and cove lighting) while showcasing top-notch kitchen design. It is the result of a collaboration with an Old City neighbor, Teknika Design Group, which specializes in creating custom kitchens. Arch Street Lighting gladly refers admirers of Teknika’s handiwork to their showroom and vice versa.
     In addition, a store that sells antique lighting around the corner sends customers to Kurland and Colman just as Arch Street Lighting does for them, all in the community spirit of matching customer inquiries to the ideal source.

Not Business as Usual
Strangely enough, customers never hear of Arch Lighting in the typical way. After realizing that advertising wasn’t responsible for bringing in customers – a conclusion reached by Kurland and Colman during an advertising promotion they closely monitored – the showroom no longer runs advertised sales. Instead, happen-stance and word-of-mouth generate the most business. “We had one customer who bought lighting from us for a restaurant project she was working on. From there, we ended up doing the lighting for her entire house,” he notes.
     Arch Lighting also maintains its steady sales through chance discovery. Kurland says they do a lot of business from people who have gotten lost. The showroom is on a one-way stretch of Arch Street that seems to magnetically attract wayward travelers who have missed a critical turn.
     Even more customers are attributed to passersby browsing galleries in the historic district. Not to mention that every first Friday of the month, the art galleries in Old City are open late (7:00 p.m.) and hold wine-and-cheese Open House parties. Arch Lighting fits right in, though it will often present a theme to its parties, such as the memorable Scotch-tasting event. “We have a collection of over 200 CDs that we play randomly in the showroom all day,” Kurland says. “We’ll tailor the music to the occasion, however, such as Spanish Night or a ’60s theme.”
     Some customers have even assumed that the well-appointed lighting showroom is one of the art galleries. “Customers will say, ‘We just love your lighting gallery’ as they walk through,” Colman laughs. “When we polled 100 customers [at point of purchase] on how they heard about us, 80 of them said we weren’t their destination, that they just ‘found’ us by accident. We’ve also had a lot of customers who noticed us on their morning jogging route,” she adds. A fair amount happen to be pilots. “We think one of the airlines uses a hotel nearby to house its crew between flights.”
      It seems that in Philly, lighting is one of those product categories that consumers don’t realize they need until they see the perfect item right in front of them or while passing an intriguing storefront window.
      The Wow Factor
Kurland has structured the Arch Street Lighting showroom for maximum impact right from the entrance. When the showroom opened, the clothing factory’s industrial metal doors (leading to basement storage) were still in place on the sidewalk directly in front of the display window. As people passed by, Kurland noticed they were reluctant to stand on the locked, flat doors and peer in. However, he could see that many wanted to look inside. The solution was simple: remove the metal doors and fill in the sidewalk. Now passersby walk right up to the window unobstructed and, liking what they see, proceed inside.
     Once they enter, the showroom aesthetically unfolds. Just inside the entrance is an existing fireplace over which can be found a large photo of one of the early NEDA meetings (National Electrical Distributors Association) held in 1952 at the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City. Among the approximately 1,500-2,000 members shown seated in attendance is Harry Horn himself.
     Immediately at the right is a long counter where Kurland and Colman welcome customers. Behind them looms an immense reference library of manufacturer catalogs to rival that compiled by any lighting organization.
     The first floor is as spacious as an art gallery, with plenty of breathing room between product presentations. “This is our ‘Wow’ floor,” Kurland explains. Grand, floor-to-ceiling decorative Greek columns guide visitors’ focus to the back of the showroom and towards the kitchen and full-size dining room vignette, complete with an illuminated china closet featuring collectibles for sale. The dining room table provides ample room for going over blue-prints or creating lighting plans. “I always offered to do lighting layouts back at the electrical supply store, but no one listened. Now, customers treat me like a lighting god,” Kurland jokes, surmising that the upscale ambiance has brought along instant credibility.
     The length of the showroom is punctuated with freestanding, double-sided displays; the perimeter is lined with an undulating series of colorful and contemporary pendants, flush- and semi-flush fixtures, and recessed lights. Attention-getting fixtures from Italy and Spain hang from above, adding to the drama. Along one wall, a large furniture piece with shelves holds hand-out literature from manufac-turers as well as Arch Street Lighting pamphlets (designed by Kurland’s daughter Joanna arts who studied graphic arts and marketing in college), describing its history and services. All of the leaflets are stamped with the Arch Street Lighting name.
     Customers climb a sweeping staircase to a second floor of products equal in space. Above the stairwell hangs a dramatic foyer fixture equipped with a chandelier lift system that is promoted in the manufacturer leaflet section. Decor-ating the landing is a montage of old-time, black-and-white photo-graphs cataloging the 89-year history of the business dating back to the Harry Horn days. There are photos of Kurland’s grandfather, father, and uncle working behind the supply counter as well as Mike in his teen years at the store.

Second Floor Is First-Rate
The first floor was designed to wow, but the second floor packs its own visual punch. Arch Lighting customers find an assortment of lighting upstairs, but perhaps many at more moderate price points and in a wider breadth of styles. This layout is similarly spacious and utilizes “found” as well as new furniture serving as displays. The flow has been crafted to draw visitors from the staircase to the opposite end of the showroom by leading them along a route of seemingly unplanned lighting discovery among the old building’s odd angles, corners, and sub-rooms.
     It is on the second floor that discrete signage makes one aware of the “three-month program,” created to move inventory so newer styles can debut without crowding the showroom. “If a customer wants a fixture, but does not want to make the purchase right there and then, we put their name on it. In 90 days, if that fixture is still here, they can have it at 30 percent off the price,” Kurland states.

A Grand Finale
Whether they buy anything or not, visitors seem to leave this showroom with a positive experience. If a customer is undecided about a particular lamp or fixture, Kurland or Colman make a color photocopy of the corresponding catalog page, write in the price, and then stamp the Arch Street Lighting name on the back. The customer can then return, catalog sheet in hand, to quickly and easily review the piece again.
     “I had two people who came in today with the photocopies that we made for them earlier,” Colman states. (Both customers ended up purchasing the products.)
     All throughout the showroom is evidence that Arch Street Lighting operates like a friend in the lighting business. Even the photo frames for sale have that personal touch, containing color copies of photos of Kurland’s dog, Colman and Kurland as children, and even family wedding photos. “We try to make work here enjoyable,” Kurland states. There are even vintage lighting posters (not for sale) that were given to Kurland as gifts and are now framed as wall art.
     With its air of professionalism coupled with a welcoming attitude, Arch Street Lighting has been successful in teaching customers to come back often to explore its ever-changing styles. “We go to the Dallas show on a mission, and what we buy depends on where we feel we are headed,” Kurland states. By surprising its customers with newness and staying on target with design trends, this showroom ensconced in a 140-year-old building has both preserved and transcended its historic bones to offer a contemporary, forward-thinking assortment of products for today’s environments.