Bringing ‘A Danish Touch’ To Creativity And Business

By Kaaren Valenta

Tranquility is a word that comes to mind in the showroom of A Danish Touch on Greenwood Avenue in Bethel. The clean, soft lines of the Danish furniture are handsome, stylish, and restful.

Here, in the 10,000-square foot building at 123 Greenwood Avenue, Kim and Nicole Christensen feel right at home. The Newtown couple had operated a similar store in the same location until 1998.

“I had a sense of déjà vu when I was setting up my office,” Ms Christensen said. “But this building is so spacious, and so bright with all the windows, that it shows the furniture very well.”

For several years the couple had operated two stores, one in Bethel, the other in Westport, and only decided to close the Bethel store because they had the opportunity to buy the entire building in Westport and expand. “If we bought the building, we couldn’t afford two locations,” Nicole explained.

But the purchase fell through when the building owner went into bankruptcy, so when their lease was up, the Christensens decided to leave. Fortunately, their former location in Bethel, 273 Greenwood Avenue, next to the Bethel Cinema, was available again.

By now, however, the couple had decided to strike out on their own. Formerly part of the Danish Inspirations franchise chain, the Christensens are now an independent, unaffiliated store, giving them the flexibility of adding other international furniture lines and customizing their stock for the Connecticut and New York markets.

Kim Christensen is from Denmark, his wife, Nicole, from Texas, but the couple has put down roots in Newtown and plan to stay.

“We had three dogs when we moved to Connecticut five years ago,” Nicole said. “We needed a rental house where the landlord would allow us to have three dogs. We found one in Newtown. When the time came to buy a house, we knew we wanted to stay.”

  They share their house on Horseshoe Ridge Road with four dogs, Dobermans Apollo and Dino; a cocker spaniel named Teddy; and Phoebe, a Jack Russell terrier; three cats, Muffin, Badger, and Angel; and a turtle named Arnie.

“We like animals,” Nicole said. “The Dobermans and Badger were rescued. The turtle, well that’s another story. Apparently a turtle buried eggs in the drainage ditch behind the store because one day this tiny thing, about the size of a quarter, was walking across the floor. Someone almost squashed it, thinking it was an insect, before we realized it was a turtle. I took it to a pet store and was told it wouldn’t live. That was about five years ago.”

The couple met in Texas, where Nicole was working and attending the University of Houston. “I was in the work program in high school and wound up getting a [college] scholarship,” she said. “I always thought I’d go into something creative, but the scholarship was for a business degree. So the store is great because I get to do both.”

Kim had been sent to Texas by Danish Inspirations, a company he had joined after attending business school in Denmark. The couple married in the Danish Seaman’s Church in New York City. Soon they moved to Pennsylvania, where Kim was responsible for setting up a new store, then to Connecticut.

The Bethel store has two levels of showrooms, a workshop, and a warehouse. The main floor features primarily chairs, sofas, tables, entertainment centers, dining room sets, and accessories, while the lower level has a large selection of office furniture and bedrooms. All of the furniture comes in a variety of woods, such as teak, cherry, maple, beach, and rosewood, and most of it is modular, with components that can be completely customized to the customer’s home.

“Ten years ago a home office was usually just a computer in a bedroom,” Kim Christensen said. “Now many people have home offices – it’s about 30 percent of our business – and they want the furniture to fit the space and blend with what they have. They want it to be part of the house. The furniture we have is totally flexible. You don’t have to have a contemporary house; it will blend well with antiques and colonial furniture.”

Bedroom furniture is adaptable as well, with storage components built into headboards and drawers under the beds. “The Danes are ingenious at making things that utilize all the space,” Nicole said, demonstrating how a snack tray pulls out of the bedside table. “There are also platform beds that don’t have box springs and don’t require a special mattress,” she said.

The store stocks a large selection of furniture in many sizes and styles. “If a customer needs a specific piece, like a sideboard in a size we don’t carry, we can special order it,” Nicole added.

Most of the furniture is from Denmark; a few lines are from Italy. There is a line of Stressless leather recliners by Ekornes, Scandinavia’s largest furniture manufacturer, that automatically provide the correct support for both the head and the lumbar region. The chairs are available in several sizes, six different woods, and two different grades of leather.

Nicole Christensen now is adding accessories to the store, including Scandinavian glass, down and feather throw pillows, and a line of clay, metal, and stone pots.

“It’s very exciting that we are now able to feature what we want in the store,” she said. “I’ve been very busy and I’m glad now that we have only a short drive to work, from Newtown to Bethel.”

A former president of Women Involved in Newtown, Nicole now is taking some time off just for herself to pursue a new passion: figure skating. “I always wanted to do it in Texas, but it wasn’t practical; we never have any snow, and my mother was afraid I’d get hurt at a rink. Now I drive to Simsbury every two weeks to work with a trainer, and I practice in between in Ridgefield. It’s not far to drive from Newtown.”

The store also is in a perfect location, Kim Christensen noted. “With all of the major highways nearby, we can service a wide area. There aren’t that many Danish stores so we draw customers from a three-hour driving radius.”

A Danish Touch is open Monday and Tuesday, from 10 to 6; Thursday, from 10 to 8; Friday and Saturday, 10 to 6; and Sunday, noon to 5. Closed Wednesdays. There is a new Web site, www.adanishtouch.com, where anyone interested can sign up for the free mailing list, order brochures, or get customized travel directions to the store. For more information, call 730-0206.