Old Brick Furniture is new owner of Ippolito’s in Meredith

MEREDITH — The new owner of the former Ippolito’s Furniture said he is excited to add a New Hampshire location to his existing stores in Vermont and New York, and bring in a few new furniture lines.

Michael Fiacco, the owner and president of Old Brick Furniture and Mattress Company based in Albany, New York, said Meredith fits in well with the company’s focus on both “everyday homeowners” and second-home owners.

“We just felt like Meredith played well for what we do,” he said. “We do a lot of design work, a lot of custom-order work.”

Customers can expect to see some of Old Brick’s popular lines offered at the store, such as Flexsteel, England and Craftmasters, he said.

“So there’ll be some new stuff, and there’ll be some of the same stuff that’s always been there. Like, we’re excited to actually get a couple new lines, like Stressless, that we didn’t carry before,” he said.

Customers also are likely to see lower prices, due to volume discounts.

“We’re just a bigger company, so you’re going to see probably some better pricing,” Fiacco said. “We buy containers direct instead of buying through domestic warehouses. So when you buy direct, you’re buying it for 20% to 30% less than if you buy it out of a warehouse domestically.”

That also will cushion the impact of new tariffs. While a lot of furniture is made domestically with frames using domestic lumber, the fabric and some other materials for furniture also come from overseas.

“Those factories, they have to stay in business, so they end up eating a third of the tariff,” he said. “The supplier eats a third, and then the retailers have to go a third. So you’re going to see some price increases from tariffs, probably in most industries, but I don’t think it’s going to be massive. I think you’re going to see probably 3% to 7% increases in most retail industries.”

Old Brick Furniture also offers financing options to pay for purchases over 12, 24, 48 or 72 months.

“So that’s where I think the customers will see a big change,” Fiacco said. “They’re probably gonna see some pricing differences just because we buy at a larger volume, which allows us to buy at a deeper discount, and the financing options will be good for the customers.”

He said the transfer of ownership will not affect customers’ warranties.

“If they have warranty issues from five years ago, we’ll service them,” he said.

Old Brick Furniture also plans to remodel the store and has hired a local company to install a new patio in front.

The purchase came about eight months ago, after a couple of years of on-and-off discussion, Fiacco said, noting it was a former Ippolito’s employee, Kier Vicente, who brought them back together.

“He’s worked for me for about three years,” Fiacco said. “He moved to Bennington three years ago because his wife got a contract teaching there. His only other job growing up was the Ippolitos’. So he kind of came to me and was like, 'Hey, the brothers definitely want to retire. Maybe you guys can revisit it.' And that’s kind of what got it going again. And Kier moved back home, basically. He’s one of the managers there.”

The store’s sign still says Ippolito’s, but the new store name will appear later this year. Right now, there is a “retirement sale” for the inventory that came with the purchase as Old Brick discontinues some lines. That means discounts as high as 70% on some of the top-brand furniture.

The furniture store opened near the Meredith Traffic Circle in 1978, which Vincent Ippolito Sr. split from the Massachusetts furniture business he operated with his brother and started fresh in the Lakes Region. The current generation of brothers — Chip, Rick and Dave Ippolito — had no one in the family interested in continuing the business.

The Old Brick story

Fiacco said the business began in 2007, with his purchase of the two Bennington Furniture stores his mother operated in Bennington and Manchester, Vermont. Over a 10-year period, he added new Bennington Furniture stores in Rutland, Vermont, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and Queensbury, New York.

“Then, in 2020, I bought the Old Brick in Albany, and I converted all my Bennington stores to Old Brick stores. I did that because he was a bigger retailer than I was, with stores in Albany and Schenectady. Since 2020, I opened Clifton Park, Amsterdam, and now I bought Ippolito’s. And I’m actually in the process of opening a store in Rochester right now, and in Henrietta, New York.”

Fiacco said the Ippolito brothers had a very good business operation and they made the sales transaction easy. Among the assets he purchased is a warehouse in Laconia, and he said he is retaining most of the Ippolito’s staff.

“This is our first store in New Hampshire, and I have a feeling we’ll probably get a few more stores in New Hampshire over the next two to five years,” Fiacco said. “We’d like to grow our footprint back towards Vermont a little bit, and stay in that area. We don’t want to get too far south. We just kind of want to stay in the area, like maybe go half an hour away.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Kier Vicente's name.