PRESS RELEASE

SAN FRANCISCO - To connoisseurs of fine furniture, the name McGuire is synonymous with style and elegance. For over 50 years, McGuire Furniture Company of San Francisco has built a reputation for design and quality as gracious and lasting as the furniture it makes.

McGuire is internationally known for creating high-end designer furniture of rattan, solid teak, bamboo, laced rawhide, aluminum and other premium materials. John and Elinor McGuire founded the company in 1948 with the notion that the natural strength and beauty of rattan coupled with classic designs could move this furniture from the sun porch to the living room. Today, McGuire furniture is not only found in living and dining rooms, but in corporate board rooms, five-star resorts and hotels, elegant restaurants, luxurious yachts and private clubs throughout the world.

Signature materials
The exotic materials used to create McGuire furniture also have become a symbol of the company. Rattan, a solid vine found deep in the jungle and grown for years to reach its enormous length and thickness, is selected individually for its color and diameter. Bamboo, a giant, hollow grass, has crosswise membranes that form its distinct "knuckles." McGuire imports choice Yellow-Gold, Black-Brown and the rarest, Mottled "Shina Chiku," from Japan and China. Solid teak, another McGuire medium, is a strong and durable wood cultivated on plantation forests in the Far East.

McGuire's famous rattan designs achieve their strength and beauty through the use of wet rawhide strips lashed at the joints - a unique process developed by the company. When dry, the rawhide tightens to form a strong, permanent binding and leaves each piece with clean lines that flow uninterrupted.

Skilled artisans transform the frames by hand staining, glazing and painting several coats of colored lacquers. Creating many of the lustrous and brilliant finishes, such as Oxblood, Hunter Green and Safari, takes hours of handcrafting. When the furniture is ready for upholstery, great care is taken to ensure that each piece is designed to the customer's style and preference. The fabric, usually the customer's own, is positioned, cut and sewn by a team of expert tailors. Given the endless combinations of styles, finishes and upholstery, McGuire must custom make each piece for its discriminating buyer.

"Many companies manufacture furniture. But, it is McGuire that has been able to deliver products with lasting quality and design excellence," said Jason Phillips, President - McGuire. "Our customers appreciate that we provide inspirational designs from distinguished designers while manufacturing furniture with the highest level of quality." In fact, the company's mission is to lend pleasure and permanence to contemporary living by creating functional art of lasting value, backed by exceptional service.

Many McGuire designs, such as the Rattan Target®, Cracked Ice®, Rattan Gothic™ and triple-pole rattan twist patterns, are protected by domestic and foreign patents. Some of the first McGuire designs are now part of the permanent Smithsonian Collection at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. Many of the early McGuire pieces designed by John and Elinor McGuire and Eleanor Forbes have become classics and remain in the company's line today.

Commissioning top designers
To remain fresh and bring the highest level of design to the marketplace, McGuire has worked with some of the world's most respected designers and architects to continue the evolution of the art of McGuire. As one of America's preeminent designers, Barbara Barry has brought her innate sense of style and sophistication to McGuire. The result of the collaboration is a group of contemporary furniture that reflects Barry's compelling aesthetic and functional elegance. The stunning designs are executed in a variety of materials, including the company's signature rattan. The group includes living, dining and bedroom furniture for residential and contract design. These pure, unadorned creations capture Barry's uncompromising style and epitomize McGuire's tradition of pairing classic forms with unexpected materials.

Another extraordinary contribution to McGuire's continuing product evolution has been that of renowned architect and designer, Orlando Diaz-Azcuy. His sophisticated, contemporary seating and tables for residential and contract design epitomize McGuire's evolution of classic forms. Based on the architectural point of view of this world-renowned designer, McGuire has greatly expanded its repertoire in rattan, added a sleek modern teak collection called Portico and recently introduced its single largest collection of dining tables. McGuire has also created a line of aluminum furniture for outdoor use and interior design. Widely recognized, multi-disciplined designer, Michael Vanderbyl brings his refined, modern designs to the McGuire audience with "Archetype for McGuire." This collection combines the familiar McGuire medium of teak with aluminum. Choosing this rather industrial material gave Vanderbyl license to an architectural interpretation of traditional outdoor furniture forms.

For its first collection of seating specifically for the hospitality market, McGuire turned to premier restaurant and hotel designer, Adam D. Tihany to create the Grand Café Collection. By working in the company's hallmark medium of rattan, this internationally prominent designer has created a fresh, altogether new collection of chairs and bar stools for McGuire.

Phillips notes that one of the most exciting characteristics of McGuire is its versatility. "McGuire furniture has a feeling of relaxed sophistication. Today's consumers have diverse tastes, combining what they love from the styles of the past with fresh, new interpretations of present designs. Put a McGuire original next to a fine antique and the two immediately establish a rapport, because both are designed in the classic tradition of great furniture, which uses beautiful materials simply and sensitively. This results in a quality of timelessness." So versatile is McGuire's furniture that it can be found in fine hotels in Monte Carlo and the West Indies, corporate offices in New York, and elegant U.S. embassy residences in 20 countries overseas.

McGuire Lighting
McGuire entered the lighting market in the fall of 1997, adding a collection of chic, sophisticated lamps of handcrafted, copper repoussé. Later, the company introduced an altogether new collection of lighting created by renowned artist Robert Kuo. These remarkable designs shed new light on an ancient art form known as cloisonné, an ornamental craft that dates back nearly 2000 years, by executing each design with a fresh, contemporary sensibility.

Exclusive designs by Robert Kuo for McGuire
Since then, McGuire has again partnered with Robert Kuo to design and craft perhaps some of the most extraordinary designs in the company's fifty-year history. Robert Kuo for McGuire consists of stunning furniture, lighting and mirrors handcrafted in copper repoussé, cloisonné, precious woods and lacquer. Also introduced in 2004 is yet another line extension, McGuire Accessories, featuring a collection of hand-blown Peking Glass vases designed by Robert Kuo. These jewel-like objects are a reflection of Kuo's exquisite aesthetic, McGuire's superb artistry, and the world's finest materials. Many of Robert Kuo designs, including furniture, lamps and his Peking Glass vases, are signed by the artist and created in limited quantities. Some items are numbered and dated to add to their extraordinary uniqueness.

McGuire Textiles
In 2004, McGuire introduced its latest major new line extension to meet customer demand. McGuire Textiles, featuring its initial Headlands Collection, challenges the conventional wisdom on outdoor fabric with eye-catching colors and sumptuous textures. Inspired by the qualities and sophistication of rich indoor fabrics and the natural hues of the outdoors, McGuire has refined traditional weaves and developed a smart color palette of new neutrals and pastels. A total of 39 covers, offering a surprisingly soft hand that make them suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, are soil- and mildew-resistant, 100% solution-dyed acrylic and offer a three-year warranty against fading

McGuire furniture is sold to the trade from the McGuire showroom in San Francisco and by representative showrooms in Seattle, Portland, Boston, Denver, Scottsdale, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Toronto. McGuire is also sold to design professionals at Baker Knapp & Tubbs Showrooms in the following cities: Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Dania, Fla., High Point, N.C., Houston, Laguna Niguel, Calif., Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Troy, Mich., and Washington, D.C., and in Baker Store locations nationwide.

McGuire's designs by Barbara Barry and Michael Vanderbyl are sold at fine retail stores throughout the country where Baker furniture is sold, as well as at the McGuire Showroom in San Francisco, at select Baker Knapp & Tubbs Showrooms, Baker Stores, and other fine wholesale showrooms nationwide. McGuire Furniture Company, along with Ann Sacks and Baker Knapp & Tubbs, Inc., which includes Baker furniture, Baker Knapp & Tubbs Showrooms, and Baker Stores, is part of the Kohler Interiors Group and a wholly owned subsidiary of Kohler Co., a global leader in kitchen and bath designs.

Kohler Co. was founded in 1873. Headquartered in Kohler, Wis., it is one of the oldest and largest privately held companies in the United States.