HIGH POINT, N.C.
Furniture mogul Mitchell Gold has his eye on the Oval Office.
As major retailers and magazine editors paraded through his stylish showroom at the fall International Home Furnishings Market here last week, Gold passed out red-white-and-blue bumper stickers, pins and yard signs: "Send Mitchell Gold (Furniture) to The White House." (Get your own at www.mitchellgold.com.)
Gold's ambition is not particularly bipartisan. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston this summer. He has hosted fundraisers for John F. Kerry and John Edwards, and recently helped Al and Tipper Gore redo their house in Arlington. He has spoken to John and Teresa Heinz Kerry about updating the private quarters in a Kerry White House, should that come to pass. He has designs on the veep's place too.
"It's time for a makeover," says Gold, who turned himself into a major brand name by selling thousands of comfortable slip-covered sofas in the 1990s. "The White House is filled with English and French antiques. There should be an American feeling in there."
Gold is a maverick in the button-down world of furniture manufacturing. The Taylorsville, N.C., company he founded with Bob Williams in 1989 now has 700 employees and close to $100 million in sales a year, many through lifestyle stores such as Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Storehouse. Gold has made a name for himself in the industry by championing workplace issues such as on-site daycare and gay and lesbian rights. He says he wasn't active in either party until the Republicans took a decided turn by backing a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage.
So what would Gold do if he got his hands on the Oval Office? One suggestion, says Gold, would be to empty the room of its "square furniture" and install his Dr. Pitt, a collection of sofas, loveseats, corner sections and ottomans that fit together to form a giant seating area.
"If the president and his advisors sat in Dr. Pitt, they would sit eye to eye. They could take their shoes off and be more relaxed," says Gold. "It would be a better way to communicate with world leaders."
