On Solid Ground

Holland Floor Covering has been in business for 36 years, proving that family ties are stepping stones to success.
By Dava Guerin

Since 1973, Roger Hansbarger’s parents, Dave and Judy, have been in the flooring business. His father was a skilled carpet installer, working as a sub-contractor and selling carpet at night. He worked primarily out of his garage with an office in the family home in Holland, Pennsylvania. As their customer base grew, they decided to open a small retail store in Holland to display a greater selection of products, and provide better service for their customers. Roger, now 38, the youngest of their children, along with his brother David Jr. and his sister Pam have grown the business substantially, while defying the odds of family business longevity. It’s a story of fulfilling the American Dream by focusing on a simple strategy of customer satisfaction, quality products and services and most of all—family ties.

“Not every family can succeed working together,” said Hansbarger. “We are all different, but we seem to work well together and complement each other’s strong and weak points. My sister Pam is the financial whiz and is an accountant by training. My brother on the other hand, manages our installations, as well as the new construction, commercial work and warranty service. My other sister, Debbie works with us part time when we need her,” he added.  “My primary job is to oversee our retail store and showroom. We each have our own division to run which works very well for us and we’re fortunate that we get along very well.”

Hansbarger said that his parents wanted all of the children to go to college before entering into the business. “I studied business in college, and worked in real estate and risk management, but spent every summer working for the family business,” he added. “However, my parents insisted that we all have some training other than just our experience in the flooring business to keep us well rounded.”

Over the years, Holland Floor Covering has grown into one of the largest and most successful businesses of its kind in the region. The company employs 35 full and part time employees, at their 8,000 square foot showroom, and 17,000 square foot warehouse/office in Newtown, Pennsylvania. Holland Floor Covering has been providing flooring for residences, commercial businesses and new construction since 1973. “Many of our installers have been with us for the past 30 years or more,” Roger added. “One of the reasons we are so close with our customers is that we are a family business and take great pride in our work. So much so, that there is nothing we wouldn’t do for our customers. That’s one of the reasons why we have an entire warranty service department staffed with technicians that only take care of small repairs or concerns.”

One of the ways the Hansbarger’s try to educate their customers and help them make the best possible flooring decisions is by treating them just like family. “We really do care about each and every customer,” Hansbarger explained. “And we try to help them make the best possible decision when it comes to their flooring needs. If they buy the correct product that will suit their lifestyle, they won’t need to replace it for many, many years. For the Hansbarger’s, customer’s satisfaction is not a business buzz word. It’s the company’s main mission statement. Hansbarger said that people should make their flooring decisions with the future in mind, because their home is the largest investment that they will probably ever make in their lifetimes. When it comes to flooring, there is literally a product for everyone, in addition to a variety of price points. At Holland Floor Covering, the showroom provides a visual template of flooring options—from ceramic, stone, laminate, vinyl, hardwood and carpet—to a new generation of “green” choices including cork, bamboo, sisal, wool and many others. “One of the benefits of visiting our showroom, aside from the guidance of our knowledgeable, no pressure staff, is that customers can see all the possible choices of flooring that are available to them. There are also many new products that we have added to our assortment, for example, area rugs and window treatments.”

If a room is divided visually into three parts—the window and wall level, furniture level and the floor level, then it becomes essential that all of them are taken into consideration when decorating a space. If either is out of sync, said Tobylynn Lichtenstein, an interior designer who specializes in commercial and residential interiors, the design of the space can suffer. “There are functional and aesthetic aspects when it comes to flooring,” she said. “You can use flooring as a foundation for the aesthetic theme of a room. For example, if the room has a rustic feel, I wouldn’t recommend using a vinyl product or plush cut pile. In that case I would use a natural fiber, hardwood or even stone. Conversely, working with a formal project, I might not use a rustic wood floor taken from the old walls of a barn in France, but might use a beautiful hardwood. But, it does point to the fact that what’s on the floor really does make a difference,” she added.

So what are today’s flooring options? Hansbarger said that there is a wide range of choices from carpets, rugs, ceramic tile, hardwood, laminate, vinyl and the new generation of environmentally-friendly products.

“We have so many more choices of flooring products than we have had in years past,” he said. “For example, there are more people who are green conscious these days, and there are products out there like bamboo, and renewable cork, to name a few, that would appeal to people concerned about the environment. There is even a new carpet fiber in which part of its content comes from corn, and this gives the carpet a green element as well.” In addition, some of the new trends in flooring come from intermingling materials which create interest, especially in rooms that are used in public areas such as kitchens, dining and family rooms. “We’ve done some interesting projects where we use two different surfaces together in a room, for instance, hardwood and tile together which create a pattern that has amazing eye appeal,” said Hansbarger. “Even carpet has changed, and we’re installing many variations of color and texture. So, for example, patterned carpet with either floral, vine or cut loop can be a great way of drawing the eye down to the floor to again create interest.” There’s even a product at Holland that works for dog-lovers, complete with an odor eliminating treatment in the carpet padding that absorbs and prevents pet odors.

Holland Floor Covering also has an interactive web site—www.hollandfloor.com, that allows customers to build their own rooms by choosing room scenes and flooring samples to customize any look. Numerous products can be viewed online and based on the store’s computer model, can showcase hundreds of styles and applications. Keeping floor coverings looking like new requires simple cleaning and maintenance techniques. For the care and cleaning of all surfaces, Holland Floor Covering provides a complete line of maintenance products recommended by the manufacturers, and adhere to the guidelines of their warranties. “We recommend some simple preventative techniques, such as having your carpets cleaned every one and a half to two years to maintain their stain and surface warranties,” Hansbarger said.

For the Hansbarger’s, though, it all comes down to the importance of family. “We are a company very much in tune with the needs of our customers and we’ve been doing that for a very long time. We love what we do, and as a family, we care and respect each other’s abilities. And our customers have always been a part of our extended family,” he said. “So much so, that when my mother used to bring her two dogs to the store, customers who already had their floors done would come back just to visit them. It’s what I think makes us so different.”

Holland Floor Covering is located at 35 Swamp Road in Newtown. For more information, visit www.hollandfloor.com or call (215) 357-0909.

Dava Guerin is Bucks & Montgomery Living Magazine’s People Editor and lives in Washington Crossing, PA.