A CLOSET WITHOUT HANG-UPS : Firms Thrive Helping People Get the Most Out of Their Home Storage Space

Adrienne Weitzman doesn’t realize just how much she has in common with Dolly Parton. Both women recently invited total strangers from California Closet Co. to invade that most intimate corner of a woman’s castle to try to make sense of where they hang their hats--and dresses, blouses, slacks and blazers.

“They put them in order,” Weitzman said of the two redesigned and rebuilt bedroom closets in her Beverly Hills home. “I can find all my shoes now.”

Parton’s needs were more extravagant. For $16,000, the closet company decked out two attic rooms in the entertainer’s Nashville home with custom cases for her wigs, special cubbyholes for her 75 pairs of boots and a bevy of drawers 5 feet wide by 6 inches high to hold her heavy sequined costumes. Another company installed the elevators to hoist her trunks up to the attic.

If there are any skeletons in these orderly closets, they must be happy.

From coast to coast, thousands of residents of cramped apartments and houses--or luxurious mansions with closets as big as barns, for that matter--are spouting the same philosophy: Spare the rod, that old-fashioned closet implement. Spoil them with drawers, wire baskets, shoe shelves, revolving belt and tie racks, cedar sweater bins and dry cleaner-style carousels that swirl at the push of a button.

With real estate prices getting out of hand in Southern California and elsewhere, many people are forced to stay in smaller homes and better plan the limited space that they have. Others who could afford to live anywhere just want the luxury of a beautifully appointed, convenient closet.

Rapid Growth

This booming business scarcely existed 11 years ago when 17-year-old Neil Balter’s parents kicked him out of their San Fernando Valley home and told him to straighten up. They had no idea he would take them so literally.

While a student at Los Angeles Pierce College, he watched a carpenter redo a friend’s closet. Soon he started hiring himself out to straighten up other people’s closets.

Today, Balter’s California Closet Co., based in Woodland Hills, boasts 135 franchise operations in the United States and four other countries. Systemwide, Balter said, it will have sales of about $70 million this year, a large portion of what he estimates is a $200-million-a-year business. He and his parents, who now work for him, own the company.

Intrigued by his success, competitors have been popping out of the woodwork. They range from lone handymen working in garages to companies with showrooms and plants for manufacturing the adjustable shelves, cupboards and other gizmos that go into a well-organized closet.

For anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $20,000, they will send designers into a client’s jumbled closet to give an estimate (usually free), then map out a plan and dispatch workers to install cabinets, drawers, rods and baskets, often in a day or two.

Most also will revamp laundry rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, offices, entertainment wall units and even oil-spattered garages. They use a wide range of materials, including coated-wire systems, wood, plastic and laminated particle board. Some styles are sold in do-it-yourself kits.

“This business is booming because people realize the value of organization,” said Niesje Van Heusden, president of the Closet Factory, which runs a large showroom and factory in Gardena. “They are spending good money on clothes and realize that nice outfits need to be treated properly.”

At the high end are space planners such as Maxine Ordesky, who runs Organized Designs in Beverly Hills. She charges $75 an hour to visit a client’s closet, take an inventory of possessions and draw up plans. (Construction is extra; for large mansions, she has known those costs to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.)

Joan Baron, who gutted and remodeled a Westside condo for which Ordesky designed two walk-in closets, was impressed with her attention to detail. “She looked at our clothes and measured the lengths. She’s an extremely organized person.” Baron ended up with such special touches as a marble-topped island in her closet for folding clothes.

“It’s a profession that’s growing by leaps and bounds because there’s such a great need for it,” Ordesky said. “People don’t have time.”

Many companies have started marketing closet products and services directly to builders, with the idea that well-designed storage space can be a strong selling point. Space Plan It in Torrance does 60% of its business with contractors and has installed systems in condos at the Marina City Club in Marina del Rey.

White Home Products, an Atlanta-based subsidiary of a New Jersey company that created the dry-cleaning industry’s conveyor systems and now sells Closet Carousels to individuals, also deals directly with builders.

Some Firms Drop Out

In addition, department stores are considering displaying more home storage items, said Alan Cohen, president of White Home Products. “One department store chain has told us that they feel home storage will be one of the top three largest growth areas in the residential market for the next 20 years,” Cohen said.

The industry has been plagued by fly-by-night competitors, and that troubles Colleen Baker, an interior designer since 1970 who has planned closets for many celebrities.

“They drop like flies,” said Baker, whose Closet Space Planners is in Los Angeles. “People think this is an easy business to stay in. It’s really not.”

Those problems aside, Balter of California Closet sees no end to the growth in closet organizing. That’s because the idea of having well-planned storage is universally appealing.

“Everybody likes the idea,” he said. “Even if people can’t afford it or it’s not their priority, they still think it’s a good idea. That’s the key.”