Regency / RGS Furniture

Regency is a virtual manufacturer of commercial and home office furniture owned by John ‘Skip’ Summerville and Aaron Summerville. While Regency goes to market as its own brand, “Regency,” it actually manufactures very little, preferring to design its own products and allow factories with specific core competencies to manufacture based on their own efficiencies, raw material availability and expertise. This allows Regency to concentrate on its core mission of design, marketing, and distribution. Regency began 17 years ago as a start-up inside the established local retailer and maiden family business, Summervilles,’ Inc. With zero employees, capital, or inventory, Regency supplied one black leather swivel arm chair to Summervilles and grew from there. Over the past 17 years Regency has only had three years of non-double digit growth, and one year of negative growth, which puts its average yearly growth well above the industry standard. Regency continues to expand and increase its product offering to serve additional customers’ needs. Regency came from the heritage of a family business that did not know the meaning of “that can’t be done.” The Summervilles’ business was started in 1945 by matriarch Norma Summerville during an era when women did not own businesses. In the late 1950s - early 1960s, Summervilles’ was the very first building in what was then Akron’s Opportunity Park. In 1960, the company received the industry’s most coveted prize, “The Guyers Award of the Year,” for creating a retail space where shoppers no longer had to walk up to a counter and hand the clerk a list for him or her to gather, but instead could walk up and down aisles with a cart to shop for their own supplies. This was revolutionary then. Regency carried the tradition on in 1997 when John ‘Skip’ Summerville began to sort out the specifics of what is now a worldwide supply chain.