Article: Wellington at Home – Fall 2007

“COUNTING SHEEP – A CUSTOM MATTRESS GUARANTEES A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP”

BY JANN SEAL
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LISA KEENEY

For some companies, “quiet publicity” seems to work. For E.J. Schrader Mattress Company, located in West Palm Beach, the fact that little noise has been made about them has worked for 51 years, and for the looks of things, they’ll be around for at least another 51.

Very few people know that a custom mattress manufacturer is right in our midst. Unless you’re a member of the decorating and design set, that is. And if you are, then Schrader is the only place you head when a mattress for a discriminating client needs to be ordered.

Blair and Diane Schrader are as unassuming and quiet as their company. Blair’s father, Enoch, started the business and Blair has been around mattresses all of his life. Not a mass producer of their product, each mattress is custom styled to the preferences of an individual customer. If that customer cannot come into the factory personally, words will do. Blair is very adept at translating. His wife, Diane, just completed an order that was taken on the phone from a customer in Holland – all the information was conveyed in words. Listening to a customer certainly takes on a new definition when you hear these stories.

Blair also has a trained sense of touch. He’ll walk into a customer’s home and just by feeling their mattress can interpret their needs. He will pick a customer’s brain for the firmness factor, and then the client’s “trust factor” has to kick in!

Why would anyone want to order a custom mattress when you can just walk into the mega stores and test drive until you’re satisfied, and have it delivered that afternoon? “Custom does not mean it’s not affordable,” explained Blair. And certainly the word custom will turn some people away. Yet prices for a Schrader mattress are the equivalent of a high-end, store-bought variety, and will last much longer. “We keep templates in hard copy in our files for 25 years, so that when a customer needs to reorder, we’ll have the specs on hand.” And 25 years is about the time frame for re-ordering a custom mattress.

Check out your mattress at home. Can you flip it? Is it as quilted and cushion-y on the bottom as it is on top? If not, then it’s not a two-sided mattress. Several years ago, the big manufacturers decided to save money and only pad and quilt one side of a mattress. To the consumer that means the life of the mattress is cut in half. All Schrader mattresses are two sided. The rare exception will be when design dictates a one-sided mattress. Other that that, all product is two-sided, therefore longer lived.

The mattress business took a big hit in the 1970’s when the US Government stepped in and established severe guidelines in manufacturing. The beautiful fabrics that used to cover out mattress tops became too expensive and didn’t pass the rigorous tests each prototype must surrender to. “It breaks my heart when one of our custom mattresses gets burned up in government testing, but those are the rules, and we have to abide by them,” said Blair.