De Madera: A dream come true in wood

It is all the customers’ fault. It was the customers who caused De Madera to be open seven days a week. “We originally used our building to store our furniture,” admits co-founder Joel Davis. “We were only open three days a week; Saturday, Sunday and Monday. People saw our furniture through our windows and started to knock on the door. We had to open our doors seven days a week instead.”

Davis and long time friend Patrick Broussard opened De Madera four years ago in Lafayette, LA at 610 W. Pinhook Road. The name “De Madera” is Spanish for “wooden,” a fitting name considering much of the store’s unmatched selection of merchandise is made of wood. What started as a simple business venture has became a rapidly growing furniture manufacturer and retailer; not even its owners envisioned this kind of success. After opening their first retail store in Lafayette, De Madera has expanded to sell furniture wholesale to eight different stores in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina.

“We started off having to buy our furniture from a company in Indonesia,” Davis says. “But every time we went back for more the prices went up. The price of groceries doesn’t go up every time you buy so I didn’t think the price of furniture should either. We went to Indonesia to try to find out what the deal was.”

It was Davis and Broussard’s fateful trip to Java that proved to be the turning point for De Madera. On an island where virtually nobody spoke English, Davis and Broussard found help from an unlikely source. “The bellboy at our hotel could barely speak English, just enough to understand us and what we were trying to do. He told us that he grew up building furniture with his family. Now he’s our head of production in Indonesia.” Eko Aryyanto, the former bellboy, now directs Gila Kayu, De Madera’s factory in Indonesia.

Owning their own factory has obviously been a huge benefit to the company’s founders, but it may be even better for its customers. “We can custom make pretty much any kind of furniture now,” Davis claims. “Customers come in all the time with their own designs and ideas. We send the concepts to our factory and make them happen.”

The end result is a furniture store unlike any the Lafayette area has ever seen. The aroma of scented candles relaxes shoppers as soon as they walk in the door. The variety of different works almost makes it difficult to focus on just one item. De Madera’s inventory ranges from very practical furniture like chairs, beds and tables to more artistic works such as wooden sculptures and home décor. For example, a hand carved wooden elephant head sits atop a table next to a wooden candleholder in the shape of a fleur de lis. The most impressive items in the store have to be the armoires. They range greatly in size and shape, but all seem to impress in their style and use. Clearly variety is one of De Madera’s strengths.

All of De Madera’s wooden furniture is handcrafted from plantation grown, kiln dried mahogany, or teak and reclaimed teak. The pieces display a rustic, antique appearance - a look Broussard explains was difficult to teach to their Indonesian partners. Understandable since Indonesians as a rule do not share American taste or style in furniture. “In Indonesia they have a completely different taste in furniture,” Broussard clarifies. “Our customers prefer the older, more relaxed looking furniture we sell, but Indonesians make all of their furniture very bright and ornate. We have had to ask our furniture artists to work a little bit outside the box with their designs.”

Broussard goes on to explain that elements of design are not the only cultural barriers to working with an Indonesian manufacturer. “The language barrier is the biggest complication by far. One thing that really sets us apart from other people is that we’ll do custom orders for people. One of the ladies who works in our Indonesian office actually has a degree in English; even with that it can still be a major obstacle to try to explain a minute detail on a piece of furniture.” Despite the obstacles the employees at De Madera strive to make each custom creation exactly as the customer requests.

De Madera’s success has spread beyond Lafayette. In fact Gila Kayu has seen its production soar since its inception roughly two years ago. “We are actually in the process of building a new factory in Indonesia right now,” Davis reveals. “Gila Kayu has outgrown its original building so now we’re moving up.” ✦

De Madera
610 W. Pinhook Rd.
Lafayette, LA
337.769.7777
www.demaderainteriors.com