After two years of collaborating together on special projects, two outdoor furniture brands are making things official: The commercial-focused Landscape Forms has acquired residential brand Loll Designs.
The Kalamazoo, Michigan–based Landscape Forms was founded by a landscape architect in 1969 and has grown into a formidable player in the outdoor furniture category, with a client roster that includes Harvard University, Barclays Center, Google and Microsoft. CEO Marjorie Simmons tells BOH that the company has long had an internal growth goal of doubling sales every six years, but recently reached a point where that would not be possible without moving into mergers and acquisitions.
Loll Designs was formed with a focus on creating outdoor furniture out of recycled plastic. For founder Greg Benson, who has grown the Duluth, Minnesota–based brand from a solo project to a company of more than 80 employees, the merger comes at a moment when he was already thinking about how to keep the company going while pivoting personally. “I started making chairs in 2001, so it’s been nearly 20 years of my life. I had been thinking about what might be next for me, but I also wanted what would be best for Loll Designs, and how I could expand the longevity of what I created,” he says. “We had been collaborating with Landscape Forms since 2018, so I already knew that there was a creative and cultural fit between our two companies. So, the fact that it was them who would be doing the acquisition was as important to me as the timing of the sale.”
Both Simmons and Benson emphasize that the new partnership was a simply a matter of good timing, not a fire sale or financial necessity. “Financially, Loll has had its best year ever, and our retail partners, Design Within Reach and Room & Board have also seen incredible sales this year,” says Benson. Simmons adds that they aren’t trying to fix something that isn’t broken, but rather to grow both companies and learn from each other’s strengths. The two companies will officially merge on December 31 of this year. Driving down lead times for Loll Designs products, which have ballooned to 12 to 16 weeks as a result of the pandemic, will be an initial priority.