Guided by the core principles of sustainability and product excellence, Northwood Design Partners has been a leading bespoke furniture manufacturer in the Bay Area for over 40 years.
Northwood specializes in designing and producing meticulously crafted steel and wood furniture, millwork, and architectural casework for both homes and businesses. From custom banquettes to podiums, and from planter boxes to bench seating, the company offers both standard and tailored designs for offices, meeting spaces, and architectural spaces, embracing variation and challenges while delivering unique furniture solutions.
“Acquiring some machinery”
“I had some contacts in Taiwan and began manufacturing office chairs there,” explains President Mike Hayes, who founded the company in 1980. “We imported the frames, then handled upholstery, assembly, and shipping from here. I did that for about two years, and realized that to branch out and grow the company, we needed to acquire some machinery.”
This led to a move to a larger space, where the company began manufacturing its own products. Northwood remained focused on seating for about five years before diversifying into conference tables and, later, a broad range of desk and office furniture.
“At that time, we were entirely product-focused,” Hayes adds, with printed catalogs and showrooms in Chicago and New York. “Office furniture is very cyclical,” he continues. “It thrives in good years, but a slight dip in the economy can stall everything. We went through a couple of those iterations with the biggest road bump we’ve ever hit being the dot-com collapse in 2003/2004. The market, especially on the West Coast, nearly collapsed. Everything stopped for over a year, and it was incredibly hard to break even.”
Northwood, Hayes explains, is capital-intensive, with long-term leases and employees who are trained for years. “When things go bad, you can’t just close up shop. It’s been a rollercoaster, especially in office furniture, which has that tendency to go up and down a little more aggressively than other industries.”
Moving into custom design
After the dot-com collapse, Northwood found itself overwhelmed by an influx of standard products coming from offshore. Hayes tells us that the company didn’t initially realize it could excel in custom furniture, but “we got lucky by hiring talented designers and engineers. We couldn’t offer the standard products at price points that could compete with offshore options, so custom furniture became our niche,” he shares.
While the timing of Northwood’s evolution was serendipitous, Hayes points to Google’s rapid growth as a pivotal turning point.
“We caught that wave,” he says. “In those early days, Google was expanding rapidly, buying up lots in Mountain View, building by building. We were doing one building a month for them.”
One Workplace, based in Santa Clara, has overseen the expansion of Google’s numerous campuses, from local sites like Mountain View and Redwood City to out-of-state campuses in Austin, Atlanta, and Seattle. Each Google location is uniquely themed, avoiding standardization, and Northwood’s role was often focused on food service furnishings.
“We rode the Google wave for quite a few years,” says Hayes. “With the booming tech sector, we became a major supplier selling through dealerships,” says Hayes. “We had tremendous success with almost anybody you can think of with tech products, especially for tech companies in California.”
When venture capital surged in the Bay Area, Northwood continued to thrive, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic put everything on hold.
Working at home
“Coming out of COVID was extremely difficult,” Hayes reflects. “Offices didn’t open immediately, and companies like Google didn’t make a move for a year and a half. They’re just now coming out of their shell, and the rest of the industry was in a similar situation.”
While the last couple of years have been challenging, Northwood kept its customer base intact. The company branched out into millwork, taking on high-end restaurant, banking, and residential projects.
“Even though some of these projects are significant—over a million dollars in value—we’ve learned that this industry is very different from office furniture,” Hayes says. “It’s been a tough but valuable education. We’re seeing the office furniture industry come back strong,” he observes. “Now, our business is about 60 percent office furniture and 40 percent millwork.”
Hayes explains that in terms of capabilities, Northwood continues to excel in design, engineering, and execution, and in building a strong and talented team. “The biggest challenge is aligning with customer expectations on design and engineering details,” he tells us. “We’re really good at producing and delivering on time, and we can install if needed.”
Key projects
Working in wood, acrylic, plastic laminate, and quite a bit of steel fabrication, Northwood currently operates in a 56,000-square-foot facility, working with high-end clients like Google, Salesforce, the University of California, the Four Seasons, and Princeton University, to name a few.
A standout project was the Nvidia Corporation headquarters, which won Interior Design Magazine’s Best of Year Award in 2018. The interior space, noted for its geometric design and use of natural light, featured Northwood tables made from reclaimed urban forest materials like pecan, ash, white oak, and walnut, some of which were sourced directly from the project site.
“We’ve had a long partnership with Northwood,” says Sandi Jacobs, Vice President and Principal. “I recommended them to my client at the time, Nvidia. There were a number of choices, but Northwood had been my partner for decades.”
The pandemic forced Jacobs to close her own business, and this past March she and Hayes connected. “It’s been exciting because of Northwood’s reputation for quality and sustainability in its designs. We’ve been asked to work on LEED-certified projects. We have local manufacturing for any projects in California, which is wonderful, but we also have FSC capabilities,” she says.
Northwood also uses GREENGUARD-certified, low-emission finishes in an ongoing effort to protect the environment every step of the way. “We’re very conscientious about those areas,” Jacobs says. “We can provide the documentation those designers and dealerships whose clients are going after LEED certification need to prove their sustainability.”
Reclaim, recycle
Northwood also commits to working with reclaimed and recycled wood and is currently involved in a government project where it is taking down trees that the company will then fashion into furniture for the building.
“We’ve incorporated reclaimed wood into projects for Google and for the city of Sunnyvale,” Hayes adds. “It’s part of our ongoing commitment to sustainability.”
Of course, no business can be successful without a healthy, thriving company culture, which Jacobs describes as a major reason she joined the team.
“Northwood’s great company culture is one of the reasons I was excited to join because the culture has always been so important to me at my previous companies,” says Jacobs. “Something I noticed immediately is that most of the employees had been here for more than 10 years, and that says a lot about a company for me. Many employees have been here for 20 or 25 years. That speaks volumes about a company.”
The collaborative environment at Northwood also sets the company apart. “There’s no strict hierarchy,” Jacobs explains. “It’s all about working together. Failure is not an option, and we’re going to make it happen, solving industry problems and taking pride in our work.”
Hayes agrees, saying that pride in workmanship is key. “It’s fun—pushing boundaries with engineering and materials and doing things we’ve never done before. We’re constantly learning, and we make it happen.”
Collaboration with clients is also vital to Northwood’s success. “Although we ship our products all over the country, a lot of the dealerships are based here, so we encourage clients to come to the factory, to collaborate with us on designs, finishes, and engineering,” Hayes says. “When we help clients visualize what it is that they’re trying to accomplish, we’re confident we’ll get it right,” he says. “We’ve been doing this long enough to bring a lot of information to clients who may be struggling to design a unique boardroom or scenario. There’s not much we haven’t seen or can’t bring to the conversation.”
In this ever-changing industry, Northwood Design Partners exemplifies resilience, innovation, and dedication to excellence. From navigating economic shifts to embracing sustainable practices and fostering a culture of collaboration, the company has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to its core values. By pushing the boundaries of design and engineering, Northwood has solidified its reputation as a trusted partner for high-end, custom furniture and millwork. As it continues to evolve and adapt, Northwood remains poised to lead the way in creating thoughtful, sustainable solutions that stand the test of time.
