nce Upon A Time..
Many of the companies that are currently topping the charts in the futon furniture category have a similar historical background. They started because an individual believed that futons were a great place to sit and sleep, and this person wanted to share this new found treasure with the world and maybe make a few bucks too. The movers and shakers of many of these companies had little or no business experience to speak of, other than what they had picked up over the years from jobs that they had worked during high school or college. Mark Binkhorst of Burlington Futon is a classic example of this phenomenon. "It all started with fourteen futons and a U Haul trailer," said Mark Binkhorst, President of Burlington Futon Company, who then told us his now famous story with the Stella Doro connection.

"It was 1983. I had parked my car in front of McSorley's, a rather famous bar in New York city. When I walked out to leave, the car was not where I had parked it. It had been hit and pushed down the street a bit. The person who caused the accident, coincidentally also named Mark, happened to be my age and his family owned the Stella Doro Biscuit Company. I went back to Vermont and had the car looked at and got a repair estimate at a local body shop. I sent the estimate in and left for the summer. When I returned in the fall, there was a check waiting for me for $1,000.00, just what I had requested to repair the car. I took the money and bought $964 worth of futons from Charette Futon in Boston. I hooked up the U-Haul trailer to the Volvo, went down there and came back with fourteen futons," said Binkhorst. He then set up shop in a friend's basement, where he intended to sell off the futons for extra income while he prepared to begin the process of finding a job. "I had just graduated from the University of Vermont and wanted to start a career in international diplomacy and finance. I had no idea that I would become involved in the furniture industry," he said

After selling a couple of futons to his friends, and due to a damp basement, Binkhorst was forced to move into a vacant store front. "I figured I would sell all the remaining futons and then head out to some interviews and get a real job. I put up cardboard signs all around the UVM campus saying, 'Futons $99'. By the end of the day, I was sold out," he said. Instead of going on to the interviews, Binkhorst cashed the checks and headed back to Boston for another trailer load of futons. "I did this several times over the next few weeks, and eventually had to get a bigger truck. The futons were selling as fast as I could stock the store." The little business continued to grow to the point where Binkhorst was selling one hundred futons a month. "I was paying $65 each for the futons and selling them for $99. I had almost no overhead and I was making money."

For the next seven years, the Burlington Futon Company grew with a focus on retail. It was the eighties and things were looking up. Binkhorst added futon frames (W. M. Brouwer) and began making his own futons and futon covers.

"When we decided to make our own futons, we went to visit Barry Sherman of Worcester Fiber. We liked his cotton, he liked us, and we bought a tractor trailer load (18,000 pounds) of cotton batting. We had never actually made a futon, but we learned quickly. I even went down to the New York garment district and learned a lot by just asking questions." Binkhorst told a story about a man he calls his fairy godfather who just showed up one day and offered to sell him a cutting table and a fabric cutting knife for $200. It was during this time that the company moved to its present location on Pine street. The large brick building with maple wood floors once housed the "Vermont Maid" maple syrup plant. Significant renovations have been made over the years, but the building has always afforded the company room to grow.

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