Keith Koenig, who started his career as a waterbed retailer and built City Furniture into a home furnishings powerhouse, has been named a Bedding Legend and will be honored at a Bedding News Now event at the Las Vegas Market next month.
Koenig, chairman of City Furniture, will be the featured speaker at the BNN Best In Bedding event, set for Monday, July 27, at WorldView on B-16. The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. with drinks and appetizers and will wrap up by 6 p.m.
BNN is once again partnering with Andmore to host the event, which puts a spotlight on the mattress category at the mattress-rich Las Vegas Market. The first event, held last summer, honored Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale of Gallery Furniture and drew a crowd of more than 150 market-goers.
Top mattress retailers in the five regions of the country will once again be recognized.
The event is sponsored by Bread Financial, Snap Finance, and Serta Simmons Bedding.
Keith Koenig’s mattress career got started in 1972, when he worked with his brother, Kevin Charles Koenig, who had started Waterbed City the previous year. The brothers became partners in the business in 1975 when they had two Waterbed City stores open. A third followed shortly thereafter.
Waterbed City was one of the most respected waterbed retailers under the leadership of the Koenigs. The retailer eventually had more than a dozen stores before the waterbed boom crested.
In the early 1990s the retailer added innerspring mattresses, an unusual move for a waterbed retailer. But an even bigger change to the business came a few years later when the first City Furniture opened. With that move, the Koenigs began a successful transition to a full-line home furnishings retailer.
Kevin Charles Koenig passed away in 2001, but the company remained a family affair as Keith’s son, Andrew, joined the business full time in 2006 and serves as CEO.
Other family members involved in the business include Keith’s daughter, Daren, who helped start the company’s design business, and Keith’s son-in-law, Ryan Cronin, who is president of City Furniture and leads growth initiatives for the company. Keith’s daughter-in-law, Deana Koenig, and his wife, Kelly, represent City Furniture with charities and boards that it supports.
“We are a family business,” Keith Koenig says, proudly.
City Furniture, based in Tamarac, Florida, operates throughout Florida with City Furniture showrooms and 14 Ashley stores as well as an e-commerce site. It ranks No. 23 on the Home News Now 125 Furniture & Bedding Retailers, generating about $736 million in sales with 38 stores.
The retailer recently announced another significant change to the business: A plan to rebrand as City Home, bringing in appliances and other products for the home. Keith Koenig knows that change is the name of the game in home furnishings retailing.
