Alfred Audi, 69; revived the financially ailing Stickley furniture firm

Alfred Audi, 69, who rescued the L. & J.G. Stickley Co. from near financial collapse and restored it as one of America’s preeminent furniture makers, died Saturday at his home in Fayetteville, N.Y., after battling cancer for two years.

Audi bought the Stickley company in 1974. His father, who had a store in New York City, had been the biggest Stickley furniture dealer in the country.

Stickley had only 22 employees and annual sales of $250,000 when Audi took over the company. Today, it has 1,600 workers at three manufacturing plants, including about 1,000 in Manlius, N.Y., where it is based. The other plants are in North Carolina and Vietnam. Stickley has 13 retail showrooms in five states and its sales are in the millions every year.

In 1989, Audi reintroduced Stickley’s Mission-style furniture, which hadn’t been on the market since 1919. The company’s sales took off.

Stickley was founded in 1900 by Leopold and John George Stickley, brothers who made handcrafted Mission Oak furniture of simple beauty and function in a market dominated by ornate Victorian designs.