The Willow Glen Resident

Eclectic new furniture store poised to come to the Glen

Black Sea Gallery has wide array of Spanish colonial and pine furniture

By Michelle Ku

Since Jamba Juice, Petroglyph and Peet's Coffee and Tea arrived on the Avenue a few months back, the adjacent storefront spaces have remained empty, but they won't be vacant for long.

Black Sea Gallery, an eclectic, trendy home-furnishings store, will be opening its newest retail location in Willow Glen in approximately a month and a half.

Pending minor construction improvements, the store should be open in April, said Mike Saramsakci, one of three co-owners of the business.

An import home-furnishings store with pieces in the same vein as those found at Pier 1 Imports or Cost Plus but without Ethan Allen prices, Black Sea Gallery has the largest selection of replicas of Spanish colonial-style, pine and Indian wood pieces on the West Coast, said manager Kay McBride.

The owners of Black Sea Gallery named the store after the region of the world from which they started importing furniture. "When we first opened the store, we were selling lots of Kilim rugs [traditional woven Turkish rugs] from the Black Sea region--Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria, Russia, Georgia," Saramsakci says. "Then we started bringing furniture to give a Mediterranean feel."

It also made sense to name the store after the Black Sea region because Saramsakci is from the northern coast of Turkey and grew up by the Black Sea.

The owners chose to locate their new store in Willow Glen because of its tight-knit community feel and because some of the business's clientele are from the Willow Glen area. "We like to go into an area with the feel of a small community," Saramsakci said. "When we operate our stores, we like to be involved in the community like a family. ... We visited Los Gatos, but we didn't get the same vibes that we got from Willow Glen."

When Black Sea Gallery opened three years ago, the idea was to sell only imported furniture, but the store now sells domestic furnishings as well. Black Sea brings in furniture from Mexico, Morocco, Turkey, Russia and India. The store will soon have products from Indonesia and Malaysia as well.

In addition to its imported furnishings, Black Sea also carries a full line of domestic upholstered pieces. The store specially mixes fabrics such as tapestries and leathers for its customers. Black Sea is also known for its solid wood armoires.

"Our furniture is trendy--what's happening right now," McBride says. "It's kind of eclectic in design, and it's the current look in furnishings. It can work in a lot of different ways. It's great for starter homes and family rooms."

The store also offers in-house designing. The store has a designer on staff who goes into customers' homes and helps customers position their current pieces and select others from Black Sea's inventory.

Black Sea Gallery is currently in the midst of an expansion. The business also has a store in Burlingame, and a month after the Willow Glen store opens, a third location is set to open in San Francisco.

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]