The story
Founded by Paul Secon in 1949, in San Francisco.1
Early history
The Pottery Barn was co-founded in 1949 by Paul Secon and his brother Morris after Morris's wife purchased some Glidden Pottery pieces at a yard sale in their native Rochester, New York. Morris thought there would be a strong market for the pottery and contacted its founder, Glidden Parker, who told Secon that he had three barns full of second-run pieces in Alfred, New York. Secon agreed to buy 2,500 pieces of stoneware for $2,500 and the brothers drove the inventory to their small rented storefront in Chelsea, Manhattan, which they named the Pottery Barn after Glidden's sheds. After their store was mentioned in a 1952 The New Yorker article the business experienced a rush.
Paul sold his share in 1966 and Morris sold his to R. Hoyt Chapin and Walton Brush in 1968. Chapin and Brush expanded the business to include five stores in NYC, one in Stamford, Ct. one in Hartford Ct. and several franchise stores in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California before selling to The Gap in 1984.
The company was acquired by Williams-Sonoma, Inc. in 1986. Growth continued until the Great Recession. Its mail-order catalog was first published in 1987. In 1999, the company introduced Pottery Barn Kids as a premium children's home furnishing and accessories brand. By 2000, the company had launched an e-commerce site for quick ordering process.
Pottery Barn Teen, the first home retailer to focus on teenagers, was launched in 2003. The first Pottery Barn Teen store opened in Georgia in 2009, as well as in New York City and Chicago. The store has a sub-brand Pottery Barn Dorm for young people starting college life.
Later history
In 2017, the company introduced an augmented reality app for iOS that allowed users to virtually place Pottery Barn products into a room and save room design ideas. It also announced PB Apartment, a small-space furnishings line, for millennials.
In 2018, Pottery Barn Kids partnered with John Lewis which marked the first appearance of the brand in the United Kingdom. Its shop-in-shops featured furniture and accessories for nurseries. Ireland became the first European country to hold the franchise for Pottery Barn Kids in 2019. Pottery Barn Teens partnered with Aquafil on the Spring 2020 collection "Watercolor Dots" rug, which uses regenerated nylon made from waste gathered in the ocean and other bodies of water.
From Wikipedia’s article on Pottery Barn, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4