When husbands John Gregory and Bill Slater started their Johnathan Wesley Design in 2023, Gregory wrote goals on their bathroom mirror for two, five and 10 years out.
This month, they’re hitting their two-year goal by opening a furniture store.
FernaCHer opens Tuesday at 2220 E. Douglas across from East High School.
Husbands John Gregory and Bill Slater are opening a new furniture store next week called FernaCHer, which is across from East High School in the Douglas Design District.
Gregory said it’s “solving that issue of touch, feel, smell” for clients.
He and Slater were going to name the business after their design firm, but Gregory said, “People got confused and really thought it was like an office.”
“I wanted something that really identified the store.”
The design firm will be at the space, at least for now, along with a variety of higher-end furniture.
“All of it’s modern,” Gregory said. “It isn’t traditional.”
One line they’ll carry is Domkapa, a Portuguese custom furniture brand. Gregory said FernaCHer will be the first U.S. showroom for the brand.
The store also will carry home decor items, or “dust collectors” as Gregory laughingly said.
“I guess I shouldn’t probably shouldn’t call them that.”
Also within the 5,000-square-foot store, there will be an area called Pittie Pile, which is an owner-pet concept of matching outfits, such as sweatshirts and pajamas. There also will be leashes, collars and dog statues.
Gregory said he has a new goal of eventually moving Pittie Pile to space of its own.
Pittie Pile is an owner-pet concept of matching outfits, such as sweatshirts and pajamas, within the new fernaCHer furniture store that’s opening across from East High School next week.
Though he has a background in selling furniture — in addition to a 20-year career in HR and getting a master’s degree in health care — Gregory said he never expected to have a brand at 50.
He said each of his and his husband’s brands are designed with the same goal in mind.
“We believe that everybody should have something pretty.”
The store will be open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment on Sunday and Monday.
Gregory said he and Slater purposely chose a centralized Wichita site.
“We wanted to be within the Douglas Design District, just the nature of what it is.”
Along with the design firm and Pittie Pile eventually getting their own spaces, Gregory said his new five-year goal “is really to be the go-to in the Midwest for interior design and then in 10 years is to be international.”
The firm’s first big job was remodeling a patio home in Wilson Estates, and Gregory said the work has just kept coming.
“It’s almost like right out of the gate we started running. It was amazing. It still just floors me.”
Husbands Bill Slater, left, and John Gregory are opening a new furniture store on Tuesday called FernaCHer.
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