Miami-based El Dorado Furniture opens in Naples with three more locations in the works

Miami-based El Dorado Furniture has opened its new showroom in North Naples.

The nearly 44,000-square-foot furniture store that replaced Sports Authority at the northeast corner of Airport-Pulling and Pine Ridge opened its doors on July 28 welcoming more than 1,000 visitors that day.

“We were so happy to see customers from everywhere and say, ‘Wow, where were you guys? We’ve never seen a company like this before',” said Roberto Capó, chief marketing officer of El Dorado Furniture. “You know when you hear this coming from Miami starting from nothing and now we are here in Naples and so many people didn’t know us…it was very gratifying.”

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El Dorado Furniture was founded in 1967 after the store’s founder, Manuel Capó, escaped Cuba with two of his sons on a sailboat during the Castro regime, leaving behind his wife and other sons in hopes of creating a better life for his growing family.

“My dad got a sunken boat and he rebuilt it and in 1966 he decided to come to the U.S.,” Capó said. “He (Capó’s father) said whatever he ends up doing he was going to name it after the boat and the boat was named El Dorado. So that’s how we got the name El Dorado.”

The same day El Dorado Furniture opened its first store in Miami, Capo’s wife and other children arrived safely in the U.S.

Since then El Dorado Furniture has grown to more than 1,000 employees and has 13 showrooms and three outlet centers in Florida, including eight stores in Miami-Dade County, three locations in Broward County, two in Palm Beach County, a Fort Myers store just south of Edison Mall that opened in 2014 and now its North Naples location.

For the Fort Myers store, the first outside of South Florida, El Dorado bought the down-at-the-heels Colonial Plaza just south of Edison Mall for $9 million in 2011, renovated it and renamed it El Dorado Plaza.

Expanding to Naples was an easy decision for the six Capó brothers who co-own the growing furniture empire.

“For years the Naples area for us has been very successful for us, but people had to drive out to Miami,” Capó said. “So, we started with the Fort Myers location and seeing the success there — the thought of opening a store in Naples got even greater.”

The family has plans for more expansion in Florida, with new locations in St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Altamonte Springs in the works over the next few years.

“We always want to make sure that each one we do, we do it right,” he said. “We are concentrating on Florida right now; there is still much room to grow.”

Capó said he and his brothers are taking it slow in their expansion to avoid ending up like other chains that expand quickly, only to shut down a few years later.

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“We wouldn’t be able to offer the same customer service and experience if we open many stores at once,” he said. “We take things slowly but surely.”

Britt Beemer, chairman and CEO of America’s Research Group, believes El Dorado is filling a niche in the market that is leading the success of the growing furniture chain. 

“They are probably one of the very few furniture chains in the country that has targeted the Hispanic consumer and has done a very good job merchandising toward them and at the same time still offering a broad range of merchandise for Caucasian consumers,” Beemer said. "They have been one of the very few retailers ever to be able to put together that one-two punch that gives you the ability to have a broader base.” 

Beemer also believes the fact El Dorado is not publicly held gives it an advantage over retailers pressured to expand too quickly.

“They are a well-run company and they are family-owned, which also gives them an advantage because they are not relying on shareholders … they are doing it all themselves,” he said. "When these public companies go public and get this extra money they've got to spend it right away, and they go into major expansion mode which usually is not what they should be doing; they should stick to their gradual opening plan."

Take a walk down the boulevard

In 1994, El Dorado Furniture introduced its first "boulevard" showroom.

Instead of browsing a typical furniture showroom, customers walk down a boulevard resembling an old-fashioned city street.

“It wasn’t an overnight thing. It started as a prototype in one of our stores in the ’80s and we started playing around with the idea,” Capó said. “My father was around then, and he had a big part to do with it … but it was a collective decision.”

When you first walk into El Dorado Furniture in North Naples, you can’t miss the life-size replica of the Capós’ first 1962 mint green Chevrolet Impala station wagon. The Capó family used the station wagon to make home deliveries in the early years of the company, and it doubled as the family car.

More than 20 individual storefronts open into specialized boutiques, each showcasing themes to fit every type of lifestyle.

One boutique named “Gallery” stands out in the showroom with its glittering accents and is known for transforming older traditional-styled furniture into what the store’s merchandise leader, Harold Class, calls the “new traditional."

“When you think traditional, you always think dark wood. … These are the same style but lighter colors … gold and silver and incorporate more fabric,” Class said. “A Chesterfield sofa is an old sofa, but the difference in this one is you have the Chesterfield sofa, but you have chrome legs instead of wood. So that’s an example of new traditional.”

Other boutiques include “Park Place,” which showcases traditional dark wood furniture; “Liv,” with modern pieces; and “Coastal,” for those looking for a Key West-inspired theme.

There are also sections for leather, office, patio, casual home, rustic-style and home theater furniture.

“We completed the store design in 21 days,” Class said. “We had 100 staff members. … We call it the takeover team. It’s a very beautiful experience.”  

Customers can also shop for new mattresses at El Dorado and test their comfort level with the store’s mattress specialist.

And if mattress shopping makes a customer drowsy, the store also has a café lounge to revive with a coffee or discuss interior design plans with El Dorado decorators.

El Dorado’s voyage to success

In the 1920s Manuel Capó’s father, Simon Capó, founded a chain of furniture stores called Casa Capó, in the Cuban province of Pinar del Rio.

Casa Capó became one of the largest furniture manufacturing and retail enterprises in Cuba by the 1950s.  

When the Castro regime rose to power, confiscating all private enterprises, including Casa Capó in 1959, Manuel Capó decided to flee to the U.S.

In 1966 Manuel Capó with two of his sons, Luis and Carlos, escaped the island on a small sailboat called "El Dorado, leaving behind his wife and other sons.

“My dad said once I get there, I will do everything I can to get the rest of the family over,” youngest son Roberto Capó said.

Within 48 hours of embarking on his voyage to the U.S., Manuel Capó reached Mexico, but he left for Miami one month later, where he then began working at a local furniture store.

Seven months later, on June 27, 1967, Manuel Capó opened the first El Dorado Furniture store in the heart of Miami. The same day, Capó’s wife and kids reunited in Miami.

“If I would have been in the same shoes as my dad 50 years ago, I don’t know if I would have been able to do what he did or have the guts to do it,” Capó said.

Manuel Capó died in 2009, and his wife, Aida, died earlier this year.

Manuel Capó's legacy lives on through his six sons, who run the growing furniture store — each playing a different role in the business.

“I think part of the success of the business is that my dad always trusted us. He always said, 'This is your business’ even though he was the main guy. He always said, ‘This is for you, not for me,’ ” Roberto Capó said. “He was always there to guide us and make sure we didn’t do anything stupid.”