Gary Friedman hates meetings. A 66-year-old with apparently limitless energy and a perpetual tan, Friedman is the CEO of RH, one of the country’s largest high-end furniture sellers, and he never holds meetings. Instead, he convenes “adventures.”
To the untrained eye, these look and sound a lot like meetings. But there is a difference. Adventures can last 10 hours, or more.
That’s a typical stretch for Friedman’s adventures with his architecture and design team, a group of about 20 executives overseeing one of the priciest expansions in the history of American retail. The company is doubling the number of stores, called “galleries” in RH speak, with 35 new ones in the works. Many will cost $20 million or more.
RH sold $3 billion worth of products last year, but Friedman’s goal is not just to move $10,000 sectional sofas, most of them in earth tones and a style that could be called California Rich. He wants to forge a brand that is so ubiquitous — RH restaurants, RH hotels, RH clothing — that its impact is global.
“I don’t really talk about our vision for the company to Wall Street because they might lock me up,” Friedman said one recent afternoon, sitting in an RH restaurant not far from headquarters in a suburb of San Francisco. “But our vision is to create an endless reflection of hope, inspiration and love that will ignite the human spirit and change the world.”
If this sounds a tad grandiose for a guy peddling sideboards and coffee tables, you haven’t spent time with Gary Friedman. He’s not a conventional businessman. He is more like the highly demanding head of a home-furnishings-based cult, complete with its own bible (those 350-page glossy catalogs that turn up in your mailbox), terminology (“adventures,” “galleries,” “RH rules”) and catechism (“This is not our job, this is our life,” reads one of the RH rules). Total commitment is required of underlings. Anything less can bring scolding rebukes.
Friedman became the CEO of what was then called Restoration Hardware in 2001, when it was a nearly bankrupt seller of midpriced furniture and Americana-themed tchotchkes, like Slinkys and Moon Pies. By driving the brand to “climb the luxury ladder,” as he puts it, he made it a place where aspirational shoppers could reach for furniture a bit outside their budget. During the pandemic-era renovation craze, the company was worth $15.5 billion.
But RH is now suffering through a grinding downturn, its market value off 70% since its 2021 peak. Nearly every player in the furniture business is slumping, largely because the great engine of sales — new home purchases — has stalled. While competitors pull back, or lean into online sales, Friedman is in the midst of a risky, full-tilt building spree. Along with those immense and stately stores, he’s galloping into the real estate business, planning furnished apartments and houses in places such as Aspen, Colorado, and Napa, California.