Anchorage Daily News: Alaska's Newspaper

Big dresser pulled in the customers

BAILEY'S: Unique storefront made an impact and gave the area character.

By JULIA O'MALLEY
Anchorage Daily News

Published: November 7, 2005
Last Modified: November 7, 2005 at 01:04 AM

While attending a North Carolina furniture conference in the early 1990s, Ron Bailey encountered a suburban store, called Furniture Land South, built to look like a giant dresser with two unmatched socks -- one brown, one argyle -- hanging out of an open drawer.

"I said, 'Man, that's a good idea,' " he recalled.

Back in Anchorage, Bailey, then a rising force in the world of furniture sales, commissioned a contractor to build an identical 24-foot-tall bureau on the front of his store at the corner of Arctic and Benson.

"The hardest part was designing it," he said. "Those aren't working drawers, you know. It's all an illusion.

"Our business probably doubled just by doing it," he said. "We even had tourist buses stopping by."

Ever since, the business of selling hutches, dinette sets and love seats has been good to Bailey. He moved recently into what he says is the state's largest furniture store on International Airport Road, with an indoor waterfall and an espresso bar.

This week he accepted an offer on the old building, but he didn't disclose the buyer and said the fate of the giant-sized, stucco dresser -- a landmark on the block it shares with a J&J Shoe Repair, Oak's Tailor, and Swinger Books -- is uncertain.

"It's a little sad," he said. "It's such a cool building. I don't know what's going to happen to it."

At the Kick-Start Koffee cart in the Alaska Leather parking lot across the street, barista Sheri LeDue felt the same.

"That's what gives (the area) character," she said. "Everybody that comes to town makes a comment about it."

There were several years in the late 1990s when the area on the edge of Spenard, anchored by the South Park Estates trailer park, seemed designed for a larger breed of human. Down the street from the dresser, Larry Allen Tattoo erected an enormous flashing neon tattoo gun atop a story-high pole. And for some years, Bailey advertised with a giant, hot-pink inflatable armchair, on scale with the dresser.

"That was cool, "Bailey said. "But it got stolen."

In the discount furniture business, the advertising game is all about outlandishness and hyperbole, Bailey said.

"You've got to make yourself stand out," he said. "With the dresser, I liked the lines, and it was unique."

In the Lower 48, stores like Bailey's often end up in the suburbs, Bailey said. There, a business owner might find lower rent per square foot and more relaxed sign laws that allow for huge balloons, giant gorillas or extra-large hot-pink sofas.

"Now, the new thing is really, really, really, super-huge stores," Bailey said. "They have IMAX theaters and bowling alleys."

Even before Bailey's and the Larry Allen tattoo gun, the corner of Benson and Arctic featured an accessory fit for a giant. Anchorage Roller Rink occupied the Bailey's building before it became a furniture store and advertised with a 9-foot-tall skate, which was later acquired by Skateland. There's still a rink under the carpet in the main showroom and boxes of skates in the attic, Bailey said.

An oversized object like the tattoo gun or roller skate is called a trade sign. The practice originated in the 18th century, according to a 1996 New York Times article on the subject. Some historians believe business people used objects because many of their customers were illiterate.

Constructing a building to look like the product being sold inside -- like the giant dresser as a furniture store -- is called novelty or roadside vernacular architecture. That type of building is common along Western highways and came of age in California with the spread of highway billboards in the 1950s, according to www.seattledream homes.com, a Web site that tracks similar buildings in the Seattle area.

James Allen, a tattoo artist at Larry Allen, thinks the oversized objects bring in business and function as landmarks. Some people will miss the dresser, he said.

"But, as far as the general architecture in Anchorage, I'd like to see more artistically designed structures and fewer gigantic socks," he said.

As for Bailey, he kind of misses his big bureau.

"But those days are gone. (Newer city sign laws) take away a lot of the coolness," he said. "I would have put one out front of the new building if I could have, but I got outvoted."

Daily News reporter Julia O'Malley can be reached at jomalley@adn.com or 257-4325.