BALTIMORE – At Baltimore’s Horseshoe Casino, if you’re sitting on it, it’s more than likely that Tony Hill and his business partner Hans Edwards had something to do with it.
Their company, Edwards & Hill Office Furniture, had the huge task of ensuring that seating in the casino’s bars, restaurants and other public areas was accounted for and in the right place.
“We received and installed just about all of the front-of-the-house furniture,” Hill said, adding that they were also responsible for seating in the casino’s restaurants, public areas, and gaming areas – indoor and outdoor.
Some of the furniture was supplied by Caesars, other things Hill and Edwards had to order.
Hill said his company is used to large-scale projects like Horseshoe – they are also responsible for work done at the Maryland Live casino at Arundel Mills and the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill – but the more difficult part of the project was time.
“It was challenging from a logistics point of view, he said. “You think you have a leisurely month and in reality you have nine days.”
He said that getting everything in place was sometimes slowed by the fact that his employees were working side-by-side with construction crews who were still putting the finishing touches on the place.
However, Hill said his experience helped him anticipate and plan for problems – and the work was completed successfully.
“For us it’s just like any other job,” he said.
We are very proud of it because it is a beautiful place,” he said. “It gives me great pride – not just as a business owner but as a Baltimorean.”
Hill and Edwards’ Columbia business has been around for about 16 years. Hill said that he and Edwards didn’t originally plan to work in furniture. So how did they get started?
“By the grace of God. I really believe that God opened a door and we stepped through it.”
The two men began working in marketing, event planning and promotion. When a project they were working on fell through, instead of charging the client, he says they asked him to keep them in mind if another business opportunity crossed his desk. That opportunity was furniture.
“Our goal was to make it so nice that people would ask ‘who did that?’”
The plan worked. Hill says that for about seven or eight years, they didn’t even have to advertise their business – people who had seen their work would seek them out.
“Furniture wouldn’t go away,” he said. “Probably for the last 14 years it’s been 98 percent of our revenue.”
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