J. Peterman is back / This time the catalog king is writing the 'adventures' of his new furniture line

J. Perterman shows his collection of furnature at Traditions in Walnut Creek. 5/13/04 in Walnut Creek. Mike Kepka / The Chronicle J. Perterman shows his collection of furnature at Traditions in Walnut Creek. 5/13/04 in Walnut Creek. Mike Kepka / The Chronicle Photo: Mike Kepka Photo: Mike Kepka Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close J. Peterman is back / This time the catalog king is writing the 'adventures' of his new furniture line 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

"When you wore this dress, men told you how much you looked like Alexis Smith. (Or Gene Tierney. Or Myrna Loy.) It was a line, but there was a lot of truth to it. ... Women's sizes: 4 through 16. Color: Cream polka dots on Red. (Note: dots are the size of small garbanzos; lemur eyes; hummingbird hearts.)"

-- J. Peterman in the "Owner's Manual No. 23"

"And there, tucked into the river's bend, was the object of my search. The Chiang Mai river market. Fabrics and spices traded under a starlit sky. It was there that I discovered the Pamplona Beret. Sizes 7 1/2 to 8 3/4. Price: $35."

-- Mr. Peterman, dining with George Costanza on "Seinfeld."

The first thing that strikes you about John Peterman in the flesh is that he really talks like that. Like the writer of the now collectible "Owner's Manual," this spring in its 23rd edition. Like the character on "Seinfeld" (that would be Mr. Peterman), played by John O'Hurley.

There he was recently, at the Traditions furniture store in Walnut Creek, nodding toward a piece he calls the Pulpit Bar. "I'll tell you how that came about. This will reveal what I do in church. I was in Westminster Abbey, sitting in a pew, looking up at the pulpit, with the spiral staircase up to it, and I'm thinking that would make a great bar. And that's the Pulpit Bar. ... Well, what do you do once you start drinking and standing around the bar? You're in control of the bar, you're in control of the conversation. The Pulpit Bar."

"Price, $4,458," you want to add for him. "Delivered in fewer months than it takes to age your home brew."

Many people are surprised to learn that there exists a real J. Peterman, one who isn't Elaine's boss; others remember his heyday, when he built a $75 million business on a whimsical catalog and a cowboy duster, and they wonder whatever happened to him.

It's a long story, best told over the Pulpit Bar, perched comfortably on the Spectator Stool. The catalog version, with apologies to Peterman: "You finally find it, the object you've been seeking for so many years, across so many miles. Then in one cold, hard winter, it's gone, along with your name. But you wait patiently, permitting a television sitcom to repeat your name in reruns around the world, until you can buy it back. $1 million. Now available in furniture."

Peterman might not strike catalog fans as the kind of guy who'd have any furniture; every item he sells -- the J. Peterman Coat, the Nantucket Sweater -- has a story about how it was found, and all that finding takes many a flight and hotel room. But, he says, "I do have a couple of houses (one in Lexington, Ky., and another on a farm about an hour north of Lexington) and I do have furniture and, believe it or not, I am very, very comfortable -- because I've traveled so much -- being at home.

"There's a part of traveling around the world that's interesting -- you go to Italy and you learn to eat slowly and enjoy the meal and you learn there's more to life than rushing around. And you go to Argentina and you learn that sleeping was not in the agenda. And then you have an opportunity to come back to where you live and put all those things together. So I like surroundings that are very interesting. My houses are interesting. And also very warm ... romantic, in the terms of the journey to another time and place that's more interesting than where we are today."

As seen on TV

Peterman -- former minor-league baseball player and longtime entrepreneur, now 62 -- found the famous coat, an ankle-length cowboy-style duster, on a trip to Jackson Hole, Wyo., and built a catalog around it in 1987. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, creators of the television series, became fans of the quirky writing and worldly voice that was J. Peterman, and in 1995 designed a character around it.

"They did it without my permission," Peterman recalls. "But then the Soup Nazi didn't like the way they did the Soup Nazi, so he sued them, and they took him off the air. And the lawyers went to the producers and said 'We'd better talk to Peterman before we go forward with this guy.' So I'd get the scripts about six weeks ahead and sign off on them."

Even though the fictional Peterman seemed irrational and elitist, the real Peterman was sensible and populist enough to see the value of name recognition. "Seinfeld," after all, was the top-rated show on television during much of its run -- and beyond.

Says Tom Morton, representative for Jeffco, the company that is making Peterman's furniture, "I have a customer in Istanbul who watches 'Seinfeld' reruns and buys (the furniture) based on that."

But even while "Seinfeld" was spreading Peterman's name, he was losing it. The company expanded rapidly in the late '90s, opening a chain of stores. Too rapidly, it had become apparent by the time J. Peterman opened on the first floor of the San Francisco Shopping Centre, in November 1998. By the next January, the San Francisco store had closed, the company went bankrupt and Peterman was out -- though his name was still in.

"The rapidity of the crash was amazing," he says. "And it was too bad. But we did a lot of things we shouldn't have done."

In the meantime, though, real Peterman had met fictional Peterman (O'Hurley) on national television, and, oddly, the entrepreneur and the actor who played a version of him became friends. Good friends. Good enough that the real Peterman says, "When the company went down, he had a bigger identity crisis than I did," then pauses. "That's a facetious remark."

Good enough also that when Peterman was ready to plunk down $1 million to buy back his name, he told O'Hurley, "I'm going to restart the company, do you want in?" The answer Peterman remembers: "Yep, how much?" And today, the fictional Peterman sits on the real Peterman's board.

He might also sit at the Pulpit Bar. Or the Wine Table. Or -- a big favorite at the Walnut Creek rollout -- the Provence Dining Table.

"This table is narrow, 31 1/2 inches. Because I want to have a dinner party that will have a conversation with all the people at the table, not two. I want a great energy going at the dinner party. The more distance between the participants, the less energy. The less distance, the more intimacy and the more energy. And everything in the furniture line is built like that."

Keeping secrets

Rumor had it that he found inspiration for a new piece the night before, at an antiques store in Menlo Park, but he's not telling. "What was it? That's a trade secret. That's how I make my living. I can't tell all my secrets."

He makes no secret, however, of the fact that he wants the new company to differ from the one that couldn't turn the century. The furniture pieces are whimsical, certainly, but they are also substantial, solid and pricey; the Tuscan Bedstead, for example, is listed at more than $5,000. They do not come in sets and are not arranged as rooms.

"What I've done is taken the business back to its roots, concentrating on making every item unique and different, concentrating on the creative and not worrying about the growing," he says. "The Chicago Tribune in the 1920s criticized F. Scott Fitzgerald because he was writing magazine articles to make money. It said, 'We think F. Scott Fitzgerald is too much about the conditions of life and not about the spirit.' I've decided to think about the spirit."

There's one strategy of the old company that J. Peterman seems willing to repeat in his new incarnation, however: exposure by sitcom. He's made a pilot called "Peterman's Eye," narrated by O'Hurley.

"It's Peterman's quest for some item, person or place around the world, and all of the interesting, funny, witty things that happen along the way," Peterman says. "The back story is the story. I never appear in the show. The camera is Peterman's Eye."

Which could result in an entirely new generation saying, "You mean there really is a Peterman?"

Resources

The J. Peterman Furniture Collection may be viewed online, at www.jpeterman.com, or at the following Bay Area branches of Traditions:

-- 1716 Fourth St., Berkeley (510) 559-1760

-- 1530 Olympic Blvd., Walnut Creek (925) 930-6501

-- 32 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos (408) 399-1503

-- 850 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park (650) 325-4849