San Francisco Mart Honors Industry Players With Platinum Pass Award

Furniture World Magazine

The San Francisco Mart awarded Lifetime Platinum Passes to Stan Tremewan, CHR, rep for Masterpiece Lamps & Accessories, Silkies and Stylecraft Lamps and Ernest Legnitto of Furniture Forum. They were honored in a short ceremony at noon on July 19 at the San Francisco Mart’s Tenant Market Luncheon. The SFM Lifetime Platinum Pass is presented to manufacturing executives and sales representatives of tenant organizations who have distinguished themselves through years of service in their careers in the wholesale home furnishings industry, and who have demonstrated long term support for the San Francisco Mart. Stan Tremewan is a much-honored sales representative who has always been affiliated with major accessory and lamp lines and who has missed only one SF Market since 1970. During the 1980s, he primarily represented Sunset Lamp, and later had his own showroom at the Mart, featuring art and mirrors. Tremewan now represents Crystal Clear, Dale Tiffany, Silkies, Stylecraft Lamps, and Masterpiece Lamps & Accessories. During the last four decades, Tremewan has been active with HFRA of Northern California – serving as President in 1979 – and the International Home Furnishings Representatives Association (IHFRA) – holding various national chair positions and serving as president in 1987. During his presidential tenure, Tremewan was instrumental in moving the IHFRA office from Chicago to High Point. After serving as IHFRA’s Chairman of the Board, Tremewan headed the CHR Committee, which developed the new curriculum for the CHR program that we know today. In 1992, Tremewan was awarded the Harold P. Braun Award by IHFRA, that organization’s highest honor. Ernie Legnitto’s career in home furnishings happened by chance. As a U.C.-Berkeley engineering student, Legnitto found a job selling furniture, and soon discovered that he liked the atmosphere and the commissions. He forwent an engineering career to start an independent sales company with Gene Devencenzi. By 1951, Legnitto and Devencenzi rented their first retail location, a tiny 20’x40’ store for $50 per month. Ten years later, they bought a building on Van Ness Street, a major thoroughfare. When Legnitto and Devencenzi split as partners in 1968, Legnitto sold strictly from catalogs. Yearning for brick & mortar, Legnitto and some associates bought a factory building on 7th Street and named it the "Furniture Gallery." At its peak, the operation had 21 sales people and was very successful. Legnitto then established a 10,000 square foot showroom upstairs from a bedspread manufacturer, but after three years, he realized that it would be easier to get designers to his showroom if he were located in a design building. He moved to Showplace East, and then came to the San Francisco Mart in 1988. Today, Legnitto and his son, Bob, work together as partners, and his daughter, Christina De Martini, is an interior designer and one of their best customers. Gene Devencenzi is works with them on the showroom floor, and another long-time associate, Gilda Del Curto, has been with them for 26 years. At 71, Legnitto has the energy and passion of a man half his age and showcases some unique East Coast lines that attract quality designers to the Mart.