Best Practices: Allwein Carpet One – January 2025
By Jessica Chevalier
In 1972, Hurricane Agnes walloped eastern Pennsylvania and changed the path of the Allwein family’s life. With demand for flooring replacement high due to the storm and a labor shortage, Lee Allwein, a teacher with a knack for handy work, was asked by an acquaintance to pitch in with flooring installation work. Soon, Lee and his wife, Sue, also a teacher, began selling carpet out of their basement and installing jobs themselves. Fast forward 40+ years and the business now known as Allwein Carpet One has grown into a well-established, full-service flooring operation run by their daughter Lauren and her husband Matt.
ALL IN ON ALLWEINS
In 1978, Lee and Sue took their flooring business out of the basement, converting a potato warehouse into a retail location with a showroom. The business operated at that location for eight years until the Allweins built a 20,000-square-foot location nearby, where the business continues to exist today. In the 1990s, the retailer made the decision to join Carpet One.
Lauren grew up in her parents’ business but flew the nest to study policy management at Dickinson College. There, she met Matt Andrews, a biology major. By the time Matt graduated-a semester earlier than Lauren-the pair were engaged.
Around the same time, one of Lee and Sue’s schedulers went on maternity leave, and they asked their soon-to-be son-in-law to step in. While Matt admits that joining Lauren’s family business was “not on my bingo card,” he was more than happy to fill in for a time. “They needed help, and I needed a job,” he recalls. “I was filling in for a maternity leave and thought I’d move on afterwards. That person never came back, and I asserted myself and kept taking on more responsibly.” Like Lee, Matt is both handy and good at thinking through challenges, so he naturally became Lee’s mentee.
With Matt already in the business, it was a natural step for Lauren to join once she, too, graduated, and while some families would find it challenging to have not one, but two, married couples working together in a business, the Allwein clan established a rhythm that worked for everyone. “When my parents were involved, we all had our own roles, and as we got more involved, they were good about slowly stepping back and giving us freedom,” recalls Lauren.
Adds Matt, “Her dad took me out on jobs and showed me how to do things. I am pretty ambitious, and I’m a fairly quick learner, so I gradually took on his role.”
Recently, Sue and Lee transitioned into retirement. “They are still around and willing to help,” notes Lauren.
The division of labor between Matt and Lauren was a natural outgrowth of their strengths. Lauren oversees sales, marketing and back-office operations. Matt handles installation and operations-everything after the sale, essentially. “It’s a good balance and partnership,” says Lauren. “It’s fun working together. We can go home at the end of the day and commiserate.”
A CURATED OFFERING
Allwein Carpet One’s business is mostly residential replacement, offering all the standard flooring products, including stocked area rugs and porcelain tile. Carpet, which represents 40% to 45% of it’s sales, grew 12% YOY in 2024 with higher-end products, such as custom runners and flatweaves, driving business. The company does well with its stocked area rug business, and Lauren believes it remains an important part of the company’s offering.
The remaining percentage of product sales is divided among the hard surface flooring categories. LVT sales have, of course, grown substantially over the past several years. Ceramic also represents a significant portion of sales, with backsplash and shower business bolstering that category.
Allwein also offers window treatments. Lee and Sue brought the window treatment offering in during the late 1990s, and Lee put a lot of focus on that business in the early 2000s, as it’s something he really enjoyed. Matt notes that having the highly-sought-after Hunter Douglas brand is a boon, as it draws customers in, many of whom say, “I didn’t realize you offered all this,” referring to Allwein’s diverse array of products.
Prior to her retirement, Sue was active with CCA, including serving tenures on its board. Lauren and Matt are following in that tradition, with both of them serving in leadership roles in the organization. Lauren recently joined the advisory council. “We believe in the co-op,” says Lauren. “It provides opportunity and support for things we can’t handle on our own.”
MAIN STREET MARKET
“We do a fair amount of work for churches and banks, and we have longstanding relationships with four retirement homes,” says Matt. Retirement home work is a consistent and important part of annual business.
In total, mainstreet commercial accounts for about 25% of sales. “When things slow residentially, the retirement community business picks up,” says Lauren.
Allwein replaces the flooring in retirement home units, hallways and other spaces as needed, with all unit flooring being replaced every ten years or less. Because this is an established business for Allwein, the company can serve the client in a timely manner.
“These are good relationships, and we’re continually monitoring to make sure we’re providing the best for our customers,” says Matt.
Lauren and Matt work hard to establish strong relationships with their manufacturer reps, finding that these are highly beneficial when challenges arise. “They are fair when things go wrong because we already have a good relationship,” says Lauren. “I often hear retailers complaining about reps, and I would ask, ‘Are you investing time in them?’ That can be a differentiator. Maybe it’s a generational thing, too. My parents were never as close to their reps as we are.”
DO UNTO OTHERS
Allwein has a lot of mom-and-pop competition in its local area and strives to stand out through its treatment of both customers and employees.
“We take care of customers almost to a fault,” laughs Lauren. “We want to sleep well at night.”
“I like to tell our installers, ‘Do it how you would if you were in your grandma’s house,’” adds Matt.
One interesting aspect of Allwein Carpet One’s strategy is having primarily in-house installers. The couple believes it can better control the quality of workmanship by having many of its installers on staff. And while it does use subs in some instances, several of these are former employees, so they have been taught the Allwein way of doing things.
Lauren and Matt compensate their team and installers well, and, as such, they haven’t suffered from laborer shortages. “We had some guys who were subs, and we offered them the stability of working in-house, taking from their plate the tasks they didn’t like anyway-insurance and taxes,” says Matt. “Another group came to us right out of high school. We have a young group. We are always getting applications and referrals because we compensate them correctly.”
Lauren and Matt are also committed to training. The couple recently had Robert Varden, owner of Advanced Flooring Technology, on site to teach a pattern-matching class.
GOALS
Lauren and Matt have many big goals for their business, and all of those start with delegation. “Handing off control is hard for us, but it’s necessary to grow and to establish value in your business,” says Matt.
“We are actually to the point where we can go away and feel the business will be run well,” adds Lauren, who hopes to see the business hit the $5 million mark in coming years.
The couple also talks about expansion, whether it be opening another Carpet One store in a nearby town or diversifying with a Floor Trader store.
Ultimately, Lauren and Matt hope to see the business reach the third generation of family ownership, whether that is through their own children-a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter-or through their three nephews.
Lauren’s brother Stephen runs a carpet cleaning business out of the same building that houses Allwein Carpet One. Though the two are technically separate, they work in unison to serve the Annville community’s flooring needs.
Copyright 2025 Floor Focus
Related Topics:Carpet One