Brian Olsen ’64 Pioneered ‘Ready-to-Assemble’ Furniture

Whenever the 1970s classic Animal House came on, everyone in the Olsen household gathered for the scene in which Otter (Tim Matheson) seduces Mrs. Wormer (Verna Bloom) at the toga party. He takes her up to his room in the fraternity house and sweeps her off her feet. As she lies back in ecstasy, Mrs. Wormer kicks off her high-heeled shoes, one of which smashes a glass coffee table. It is one of the most sensual cinematic scenes of the decade. (Well, maybe not, but remember: movie scenes are sensual. People are sensuous.)

The Olsens weren’t tuning in for the witty repartee or the subversive collegiate hijinks. They wanted to see the coffee table get smashed. That is because the company Brian Olsen ’64 founded manufactured it.

Those chrome and glass coffee tables, as well as numerous other wooden pieces, were products of the Instant Furniture Co. of Cartersville, Georgia, which Olsen and two others co-founded. No one is quite sure how one ended up in the movie — someone in the studio props department must have decided it looked authentically retro. And breakable. However they obtained it, Olsen was delighted. “He definitely thought it was great, because he loved the film,” says his daughter Kirstin Olsen ’87.

And there was no mistaking that the table was one of his. “They were instantly recognizable if you’d ever seen one,” says Monica Yahr, widow of one of Olsen’s partners. “I saw another one in a doctor’s office a few years ago.”

Besides its on-screen cameo, the furniture was notable for its functionality as well as its style. Easy to produce, cheap to ship, and simple to put together (in theory, at least), it is now known as “ready-to-assemble” furniture. At the time, Kirstin Olsen says, it was known as “knocked down” furniture.

Though Ikea now dominates the ready-to-assemble furniture market, the concept has been around since the Civil War. The first U.S. patent for furniture that could be put together without hardware or glue wasn’t issued until 1953, but according to Kirstin Olsen, her father came up with the idea independently. Every piece of a coffee table or bookcase had to be precisely cut so the screw holes and slats aligned perfectly every time. She remembers her father designing and building the manufacturing machinery because nothing on the market could do what he needed.

“He always seemed to be designing something,” she recalls, “a house, a bed, a swimming pool, a chair, a walk-in closet.”

Had things gone differently, Olsen might have been an entertainer. At Princeton, he majored in religion and was an announcer on WPRB. Olsen’s first job out of college was as a TV cameraman at WGN in Chicago, but he soon moved into furniture sales to make more money.

At trade shows, he had a knack for using games or skits to draw crowds to his booths, though he also could make his pitch more directly. Sometimes he would pull a drawer out of a desk and jump on it to demonstrate how sturdy it was.

“He always said that the key to selling was believing that your goods were the right fit for the customer,” his daughter says. “He never ‘sold’ anybody if he thought his stuff wasn’t right for them.” Knowing that he could sell furniture, Olsen eventually decided to try manufacturing it.

After the Instant Furniture Co. went out of business in the 1980s, Olsen launched several other startups, including a custom closet company and a company that designed cell phone skins. He ended his career as director of North American sales for DirecTV.

During their 60-year marriage, Olsen and his wife Nancy lived in almost 40 homes and traveled to every continent except Antarctica, taking car-camping trips above the Arctic Circle and a six-week, self-guided safari in Africa, birdwatching and collecting art wherever they went.

“And he always spoke highly of being a Princeton man,” Monica Yahr says.

Mark F. Bernstein ’83 is PAW’s senior writer.