Flexsteel’s 7-piece modular couch (Item 1734803) has enough room for the entire family.
© Trent Hanselmann/Gigantic Design Co.

A heritage of comfort

Flexsteel builds on a history of innovation and adaptability

by MARK RAY

Flexsteel Industries traces its history to 1893, when the Rolph & Ball Furniture Company opened its doors in Minneapolis. In 1901, four tradesmen—including a German immigrant who had arrived in the United States with just 50 cents in his pocket—bought the business, which eventually became Northome Industries.

But 1927 might be a more important date. That’s when the company added flexible steel springs to its products.

Swiss inventor E. Werner Schlaprittzi modeled the springs after those he’d seen in bell tower clocks. “He noticed there was one piece in those clocks that never wore out: the spring,” says David Crimmins, vice president of sales and product management for Flexsteel. “It had to do with how the steel was poured, the chemistry of the steel and the ultimate tensile strength.”

Schlaprittzi first sold his springs for use in European railroad car seats, where durability was as important as comfort. After emigrating to the United States, he began making springs for residential furniture manufacturers. One of those manufacturers was Northome Industries.

Besides being durable, Schlaprittzi’s springs offered a balance of softness and support. In fact, the patented Blue Steel Spring—the metal has a natural blue so important that Northome renamed itself Flexsteel Industries in 1958, a nod to the springs’ strength and flexibility.

The Blue Steel Spring at the heart of Flex technology.
© courtesy of Flexsteel

Furniture that fits your home

That idea of flexibility also lies at the heart of the company’s new Flex line of modular sofas, so named for their adaptability to make the best use of one’s room space.

Each Flex seating component includes a suspension box that simply drops into the assembled base. (There’s even a “front” tag to make sure you put it in the right way.) “It ends up having the same comfort, quality and durability as a normal, fully built piece of Flexsteel furniture,” Crimmins says. The seat bases, which you can lay out in nearly any configuration, connect with hand-tightened C-clips, while J-brackets secure the backs and arms in place. Crimmins says each component takes only a few minutes to put together, and customers can easily reconfigure the components later if their needs change.

Staying relevant

Over the decades Flexsteel has manufactured everything from hotel furniture to RV seating. Today, however, the focus is strictly on the home and creating furniture for consumers who need furnishings that look great and fit today’s active lifestyles, offering products for the living room, bedroom and dining room.

Based in Dubuque, Iowa, Flexsteel builds its products in Juarez, Mexico (where Flex is built); Dublin, Georgia; and Asia. And it strives to give back to each community in which it operates. For example, every employee gets three days of paid time off annually for volunteer work. “Employee community engagement will sustain a strong community, foster long-term business relationships and maximize the opportunity for corporate visibility, helping Flexsteel stand out in the communities where we operate,” Crimmins says.

Given the company’s long and flexible history, that’s likely to remain true.