This story began way back in the fall of 1955. I was a carpenter and wanted to quit being a carpenter. I played golf with a brother in law and his best friend, Dave. Dave suggested that I build new cabinets for the home he had just bought and I'd be free to look for something else.

Dave brought an upholstered breakfast nook from an Elmer Benner, who manufactured breakfast nooks and restaurant furniture in Portland. Elmer had a serious problem. He had an alcoholic brother in law running the Seattle office. Very little money got past the nearest bar and back to Portland. Dave and Elmer discussed the situation and it was suggested that it was an ideal spot for my wife and me.

Elmer called on us and the next week we were in the restaurant furniture and breakfast nook business.

About a year later I entered us into the Seattle restaurant show. Elmer made me an attractive banquette sample. When the architect for the Olympic hotel came by he said, "That's the first work I've ever seen in the northwest that I'd use in the Olympic". The Olympic, now the Four Seasons is the top hotel in Seattle. We did a genuine leather job in the Terrace Room, a gorgeous cocktail lounge. We started at the top but never managed to get to the lower places of which there are many more.

Subsequently we did the dining room and cocktail lounge of the Lakewood Terrace Restaurant in South Tacoma. It was owned by Norton Clapp, who at the time was president of Weyerhaeuser. That restaurant was recognized in Institutions Magazine, the bible of the industry, as one of the two best restaurant interiors in the U.S. for that year.

Shortly after this, Elmer got into deep financial difficulties in Portland and got out of town just ahead of the sheriff who locked up the shop with most of Elmer's equipment. At the same time, Elmer went to Anaheim, California to build the furniture for a couple of Portland restaurant owners who had bought the restaurant that President Nixon's brother had had in Anaheim.

In order to do the job he, of course, needed the equipment that the sheriff had locked up in Portland. No problem. Elden, his foreman returned to Portland and broke into the building and returned to California with the equipment allowing them to complete the job. This is the same Elden who later saved my neck in the shop flood. I guess Elmer could also say thank you, Elden.

Elmer thought he would still be able to manufacture furniture in California and ship it to me. After one order of a breakfast nook came in it became apparent that this was not going to work. I had learned how to build a frame for a breakfast nook and I had a couple of breakfast nooks upholstered by a local upholsterer who was also a member of Kiwanis with me.

It was apparent that this arrangement wouldn't work if I were to get a big restaurant job. I had some good contacts but no way to produce. It was decision time. Do I butt my head or do I give up. Obviously, I butted my head.