NAHB Exhibit : New Products Aimed at Upscale Market
With its huge attendance by the movers and shakers of the home building industry, the annual convention/exposition of the National Assn. of Home Builders is the ideal place for manufacturers to display their latest products.
The just-concluded 45th annual convention/exposition--the exposition part of the title reflects the importance of the exhibits--was a builder’s candy store, from Iron-a-way Inc.’s line of built-in toasters, towel dispensers and bathroom scales to the spectacular, curved dual-glazed window from Minnesota-based Marvin Windows that will give architects a lot of expensive new ideas, to Gyp-Crete Corp.’s radiant-heat lightweight concrete floor system that will keep move-up buyers from getting cold feet about that expensive new house.
Product emphasis was on the high end of the market, typified by built-in vacuum systems (the system from H-P Products vents directly outside, eliminating the need for bags for filters); frameless kitchen cabinets from Europe and the U.S., refrigerators by Traulsen, Sub-Zero and U-Line, a Milwaukee-based firm that is run by a branch of the Uihlein family that went into making coolers for beer rather than the beer (Schlitz) itself.
Luxury Move-up Houses
The product mix reflects the nation’s changing demographics, with its emphasis on luxury move-up houses for affluent baby-boomers and the pre-boomer generation born in the mid- to late-1930s.
Builders seeking market share in this competitive segment can gain an advantage over their competitors by offering such products as floating hardwood flooring, a system from Boen Hardwood Flooring Inc. that provides a resilient floor on almost any subfloor, or a termite-resistant, virtually fireproof wood entry door from Matsushita Electric Works Ltd., or floor heating cables by ESWA Heating Systems designed for heating slab floors with marble, brick, tile or similar surfaces or for melting snow from stairs, sidewalks and driveways.
The Trus Joist Corp. displayed its “no-squeak” subfloor system, calling attention to it with picketers near the Georgia World Congress Center convention hall bearing signs with such messages “No More Squeaky Floors.” A convention-goer could be excused for mistaking these picketers as part of the contingent of counter-demonstrators for a white supremacist march held Jan. 21 (they weren’t).
The ultimate product showcase at the convention was the New American Home ‘89, a 5,400-square-foot, $700,000 house on a 2/3-acre lot in Roswell, Ga., about 25 miles north of the convention center. Now in its sixth year, the New American Home is sponsored by the National Council of the Housing Industry and Builder and Home magazines.
Designed by Charles Moore, head of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas--he served in similar capacities at UCLA and UC Berkeley--this year’s house focuses on a mythical trendy couple that could be called the ultimate baby-boomers.
With apologies to columnist Alice Kahn, who is credited with inventing the term “Yuppie,” the NAHB’s Dirk and Bree have a median income of $120,000 a year, anticipate spending more than $300,000 for a house, have children or parents living at home and are in their early 40s.
The large house by John Wieland Homes, Atlanta, has plenty of nooks and crannies as well as such desirable features as a laundry room next to the upstairs bath, motorized closet units by White Home Products Inc. that are much like the kind at the neighborhood cleaners and a gee-whiz bathroom window by Marvin that changes from clear to opaque at the touch of a button.
