upholstery business.

Roland and Sue Plathe founded the Fairylands Upholstery Shop Ltd. in 1984, and since then they have managed to carve out a comfortable niche in the Island's upholstery business.

The German-born Mr. Plathe, a qualified upholsterer and saddler, originally came to Bermuda to work for a local upholstery company. When it closed he had already met his future wife, and he began looking for other work. But the more he looked, the more it made sense to open up a whole new company.

"We looked around at other upholstery companies, and we felt that there was room for some competition,'' explained Mrs. Plathe.

They hired two women who had previously worked for the company that went out of business, and in 1984 opened Fairylands Upholstery.

In 1985 they moved to their current location on Woodlands Road, and their staff has now expanded to five craftsmen.

"We still do some residential upholstery, but our business is predominantly commercial: we do a lot of work for hotels, restaurants and companies in town,'' said Mrs. Plathe.

And their marine work has expanded so much that they established a separate division to deal with it -- the Marinelands Cover Shop.

"There was a tremendous need for a professionally-run company to deal with that business for Bermuda. Before, many people would go to Florida to have that work done, which was incredibly time-consuming and expensive.'' The key to their success, said Mrs. Plathe, was that they answered a need in Bermuda, and made sure they did it in a straight forward and professional manner.

Roland And Sue Plathe.