Gracious Home, the beloved NYC-based luxury home décor retailer renowned for its exquisite style, vast merchandise selection and exceptional customer service, unveiled a new leadership team of owner-operators, with plans to invest in the continued growth and success of Gracious Home to serve today's home marketplace.
The new Gracious Home team includes prominent executives with deep expertise in retailing, investment management and real estate, who have agreed to purchase a majority ownership stake. The new team will provide the leadership, market knowledge and investment resources for Gracious Home to continue to be a leading independent player in the home lifestyle category.
Dottie Mattison, who has been named CEO of Gracious Home, has extensive experience in the worlds of retailing, consumer brands, media and investments. From 2006-2010 she served in a variety of executive roles at Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., including senior vice president and general manager of the Apparel Global Merchandising Center and chief merchant of Walmart.com. Immediately prior to joining Gracious Home, she was a senior managing director at Guggenheim Partners, a global investment management and advisory firm. While at Guggenheim, she also served as CEO of Prometheus Global Media, parent company of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, Adweek and The Clio Awards.
David Mitchell, who will serve as Gracious Home's chairman, is president of Mitchell Holdings LLC, a New York-based investment and real estate development company. His firm has been active in New York, Las Vegas and South Florida.
Gracious Home has been New York City's premier chain of stores for fine home furnishings for more than 50 years. Gracious Home is renowned for its focus on incomparable quality, superb customer service and discerning taste. Its NYC stores, located on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side and Chelsea, have helped define the style of countless New York-area homes, offering a broad range of décor items, table linens and bedding, kitchen and bath fixtures, lighting, appliances, hardware and gifts.
The new team plans to invest significantly in the future of Gracious Home. Initial plans include further enhancing the customer service experience, as well as providing expanded resources for the design community. The team also plans to expand the gracioushome.com e-commerce site, which has a national following and is a strong contributor to the retailer's sales, growing by over 50% in the past year.
"Being able to lead a strong, beloved consumer brand such as Gracious Home is a dream come true for me," said Dottie Mattison. "No other company can compare with Gracious Home's incredible breadth of merchandise, sophisticated sensibility and passionate, knowledgeable associates. Generations of New Yorkers have grown up with Gracious Home and have made it a part of their lives. As the luxury home market continues to thrive, we see many exciting opportunities to build on Gracious Home's devotion to quality, exquisite taste and exceptional service."
David Mitchell commented, "I am excited to be working with Dottie and the motivated and caring associates of Gracious Home to build on its great legacy. As a life-long New Yorker, I know from experience that the 'look no further' promise of Gracious Home is so true. For decades Gracious Home customers have found everything they needed to create a personalized, stylish and inviting environment in their homes. Our new team of owner-operators has the expertise in e-commerce, store operations and product development to assist Gracious Home adapt to ever changing consumer needs."
Mattison noted that the new owner-operator team looks forward to working with and building on the efforts of Americas Flagship Retail Fund, which has owned Gracious Home since 2010 and will retain a minority stake. Tags: