If you had to choose one name to represent the full scope of the American furniture industry—highs, lows and highboys—Baker would be a good pull. Founded in Michigan in 1890 by a Dutch immigrant, the company has done basically everything over the course of a century-plus in business—from European reproductions to Danish modernism to a late-1990s Barbara Barry collaboration that dominated well-to-do living rooms across the country.

Baker also embodies some of the shifting winds that have blown through the industry over the past few decades. In 1986 the company was purchased by Kohler as the kitchen and bath giant sought to move into other rooms in the home. Then in 2017 it was sold to Samson Holding, the Hong Kong–based conglomerate that also owns Universal Furniture.

Samson Holding has made its own shifts as of late. Like many others, the 30-year-old company experienced the wild swings of the Covid period, including a post-pandemic slump amid the doldrums of the U.S. housing market. After a few years of relatively flat performance on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Samson quietly executed a privatization plan last fall that saw founder and CEO Samuel Kuo lead a group to buy the company’s outstanding shares. The conglomerate is now firmly back in the hands of the man who built it.

Eric GrahamCourtesy of Baker

In other words, it’s a new day at the parent company. And, with the recent retirement of former president Michael Jolly, it’s a new day at Baker too. Into the role steps Eric Graham, an industry veteran who has specialized in the mid-to-upper range of the market, with stints at Jonathan Charles, Century Furniture, Surya and many others. Graham spoke with Business of Home about changes in the retail landscape, engaging with the next generation of designers, and whether tariff uncertainty matters.

You’ve had a lot of different roles in the industry. What’s the throughline, and what are your superpowers?
The three things I focus on are people, product and sales—and they all interrelate. Anybody in product development has had the experience of starting with a concept that’s sketched on the back of a cocktail napkin. Then you go and get technical drawings done, you start sampling. It comes to market, and then you have to sell it to your sales team. At some point, maybe you get to see a designer specify it for a project or a retail salesperson sell it, and you see a consumer fall in love with the product. To me, that’s an endorphin rush. You can’t beat it. And [that process] incorporates people, product and sales.

Are there examples of that from your own career?
I spent a long time at Century—I was the guy who launched what became Cornerstone, which is a bestselling upholstery program. On the outdoor side of the business, I worked with quite a famous outdoor furniture designer, Richard Frinier. I loved collaborating with him, whether I was working on product in Mexico or frames in Indonesia—seeing it come through and people absolutely engaging with it.

What’s the state of play at Baker right now—and what do you see as your mission?
I was brought on because Mike Jolly is retiring, so that created a vacancy. [I’m] not challenged with being a fix-it guy or a startup guy. I’ve done those enough in my career. [Right now I’m looking at] product development, working with designers and the icons that are already here, and what’s coming down the pike. 2025 is already decided—those bullets have been fired toward the target. After that, there’s a little less of a lock-in, but you have a plan for when you’re going to add to this collection or that collection—all the way out to 2028. [I’m thinking a lot about] the integrity of the brand: This is one of the iconic brands in the industry. I’m not after damaging it.

You’ve said that you’re a product guy. What’s next for Baker’s product?
Big question. Baker has taken a foray into outdoors, so that’s one place to have some growth. But from a product standpoint, it’s the question that everybody’s got about merchandising: Where do you see the puck going?

The high end, for most of my career, is what has dictated the style in the furniture industry. But after the 2008 crash, the lower end did a little more dictating than it normally did. At Baker, we’re trying to be out in front—to set the tone in style and fashion.

Baker has always been an international company, and I think [we’ll be] mixing in some more of what the international needs are. We’re doing a really nice business in the hospitality space, and there’s tremendous opportunity for more growth there.

When you say style has been dictated more by the lower end in the past decade or so, does Baker need to reclaim that high ground, that position of authority?
Back in the 1990s, I had a store. We could come to High Point Market, and I didn’t buy Henredon—that wasn’t a fit for our store—but you’d walk around and people would say, “Oh, that’s that Ralphy look.” People would be communicating that there was something that had traction in the marketplace. Then, around 2000, it became “that Barbara Barry look,” and then “that Resto look.”

At one point in time, the market was absolutely engaged with what [Baker’s] design aesthetic said—whether it was [other companies] selling competitive product, or selling accessories that felt like they should be sitting on top of one of Barbara’s cocktail tables.

Like the sun that everyone else revolves around.
Everybody tries to do that. Nobody can design to do that; it’s just the stars aligning. But you’re still trying to be a leader, where somebody looks at it and goes, you know, it’s that look. It didn’t come from somebody else—it came from you.

How much of Baker’s business is to the trade?
It’s very significant. If you put all of the to-the-trade showrooms in a bucket, and then any designers who are directly engaging with this office, that’s a very large part of the business. On the hospitality side, ultimately, you’re [also] selling through a designer.

A lot of brands are trying to directly engage with designers now, and competition is heating up. How do you keep the trade customers you have and also reach the next generation?
The next-generation question is a really key and critical one. I have four children ages 18 through 26, and they’re getting started in their careers. My daughter lives in San Diego, and her roommate happens to be an interior designer. I was chatting with her about, “What brands do you like? What brands do you know?” And it’s a little disturbing—we’ve got a whole host of people in that age bracket who don’t really know [classic American brands]. I was going through names, asking, “Do you know Vanguard? Century? Hancock & Moore?” She did know Baker, and I asked what she knew [about it]. She said, “I know it’s very expensive.”

I think there’s a huge need to develop more of a dialogue with a younger crowd coming on board in this industry and be engaging to them. We’re not going to go down the price spectrum. We’re not going to be in the entry level—that’s not who we are as a brand. But I think we need to [reach a younger audience to] create that mindset that these are aspirational purchases. It’s planting the seeds of, “Wow, that is really cool.”

One thing we’ve been covering lately is the decline of independent retailers. Do you feel like Baker is insulated from the struggles of that distribution channel?
I don’t know that anybody’s insulated from anything. When you look at the competitive landscape, everybody’s jockeying for position. There has been a lot of attrition at the upper-end retailer positions. In my career there’s been tons of turnover, and I do have the sense that it’s changing again.

I’m not trying to speak disparagingly of anybody, but I look at Wayfair, and it’s opening up brick-and-mortar stores. Back when [Wayfair co-founder and CEO Niraj Shah] came around, he was pitching the idea of, “I can do it better than brick-and-mortar! I can do it for less! I can be all these things!” He’s obviously [built up] a model that’s huge, but if it was working, why are you trying to get into brick-and-mortar?

It’s working, but it’s not profitable.
I also think there is going to be a grassroots [shift]. A tremendous amount of designers are engaging the business—they’re involved, they are embracing High Point and the other markets and showing up. It wasn’t really that long ago that major industry players had signs on the door that said: “Designers not welcome.” But now they’re embracing the trade. Designers have a view, they have a perspective. I think we’ll see an increase in boutique retail startups, where designers are going to open up small-to-medium-sized locations based on the identity they bring to the table.

I have to ask, because it’s the topic of the moment: tariffs. Do they matter for Baker?
I haven’t been here long enough to get into the weeds as to the plan. I think the bigger part of the question is [about coping with the] uncertainty. If there’s one thing we’ve all gotten accustomed to [over the last five years], it’s all the things coming at us, the uncertainties. So maybe a sense of, OK, this doesn’t seem to be as nasty as some of these other things that we’ve dealt with. We’ve already dealt one time with the tariffs on China, which really affected the industry. So will it do the same? I don’t know. I don’t see them being long-held positions. I see them as a negotiating tactic to get leverage on another position that the current administration wants. So I don’t know that it has a longstanding place. And if it does, we all—the American consumer and the global consumer—will start to work our way through it.