A Grand Island family business has passed on to the next generation, with continued hopes of expansion and growth.
Lisa Vasa and Dave Triplett are the new owners of Amish Furniture of Nebraska at 515 S. Webb Road, Suite B. Their parents, Ken and Cheryl Triplett, started the store in Grand Island in 2005. Ken died earlier this year, and his children took over ownership and operation of the business.
Ken Triplett was a Gibbon native raised on a family farm with roots back to the 1860s. Their mother, Cheryl, was also from the Gibbon/Shelton area. In 2005 the Tripletts moved to Grand Island from Wisconsin to be closer to their roots.
Ken Triplett started in the furniture business in Omaha when he was 19 years old. When he opened Amish Furniture Outlet in 2005, he brought years of furniture experience and the connections he had made with Amish craftsmen to offer something new in Grand Island.
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Vasa said she and her brother are making some changes to the store. One is to change the name to Amish Furniture of Nebraska. They are currently working on a new logo.
The store is expanding to 35,000 square feet, she added. With Island Flooring moving, Vasa said the store will be taking over that space and connecting the main store and the bedroom/dining shop.
Vasa got involved in the furniture business through her parents. She has managed several furniture stores.
“My father was a stickler for quality,” Vasa said.
During the 1990s, much of the country’s furniture was made in the United States, especially in North Carolina and California. In the late 1990s, furniture manufacturers started outsourcing to other countries. She said many furniture factories in the U.S. were closed.
“My dad would never carry anything that was not made in America,” Vasa said. So he began looking for another furniture sources whose products were made in the U.S., she said.
“He heard about the Amish community in Indiana and that they made the very best hand-crafted furniture,” Vasa said.
She said her father established a network of Amish craftsmen from whom he could purchase furniture.
This weekend, many of those Amish furniture craftsmen and their families are in Grand Island to meet the store’s customers. Vasa said that is a tradition her father started so the customer could talk directly to the furniture’s originator.
She said because of that close relationship with Amish craftsmen, her father could offer customers the opportunity to custom design their furniture.
“We have a very tight relationship with the Amish,” Vasa said. “One hundred percent of everything we carry is built by Amish craftsmen.”
Amish furniture is not about a particular style, she said, but the way it is built and crafted. All of the furniture is made from hardwood.
She and her brother have diversified the types of furniture styles they offer. For many years, Vasa said, their customer base consisted primarily of rural people who liked the traditional quality and look of the Amish furniture. The store’s new furniture keeps that quality and but is more attractive to urban dwellers looking for a more contemporary look with a rustic appeal.
Vasa said the business’ current 25,000 square feet of show space makes the store the largest showroom of only Amish furniture in the Midwest.
With the new space, Vasa and her brother are moving their warehouse onsite to make the operation more efficient.
“It will be a much better experience for our customers,” said Vasa, who also credits the store’s success to their employees.
“We have the best employees,” she said.
Tammy Schuett manages the store. Dana Harris has been with Amish Furniture for eight years as a sale consultant. The sales consultants are not paid commission — they work as a team to focus on better customer experience, Vasa said. Rita Schmidt is the store’s interior designer and merchandise director.
As for the future, Vasa has high hopes.
“We want to be that amazing place where people from Nebraska and surrounding states feel it is worth the drive to our store,” she said. “If you want furniture of heirloom quality that is like nothing that you have seen anywhere else, it is worth the drive.”
Store hours are 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
For more information, call (308) 384-2284.