Motion's stylish profile

By Joan Gunin -- Furniture Today, 5/28/2007

Laurent Leather's Model 4200 series was a test of sorts as part of the domestic producer's first venture into motion and media seating at this spring's High Point Market.

"This is not a traditional media piece," said President Stephen Cole. "The guy might be the electronics nut, but the wife wants a stylish piece of furniture."

Not surprisingly, the motorized frame was a collaborative effort between Cole and his designer wife, Donna. "I did the mechanics, but the aesthetics (came from) Donna," Cole said.

Offering a home theater alternative as a one- or two-seater, the wall-hugging model with a Leggett & Platt mechanism was an effort to create "something that did not look like regular, three-across Chinese seating," Cole said.

He added that the Model 4200 drew a "really good response (at market) and we are pushing it to home theater companies and dealers," he said. "People spending $50,000 to $100,000 for a media room won't balk at two grand for a chair or three grand for an electronic sofa."