CitiSleeper Slide-Away Beds Combine Ingenuity with Charitable Spirit

Tinka Swetland was living in a small apartment in Naples, where she put her creativity and knack for efficient space utilization to use by running a high-end designer closet business. When it came to space in her own home, though, Tinka sometimes felt like she was living in a closet.

“I can’t tell you how many times I tripped over my bed on the way to the bathroom,” she said. “I kept thinking There has to be a better way."

Her frustration with the tiny space led to the patent for CitiSleeper, an award-winning slide-away bed system and the creation of a new business based in Bradenton.

In a trial and error process that she admits was often fraught with more error than success, Swetland experimented with sofa sleepers and futon designs before she finally landed on the prototype for the CitiSleeper in 1998.

“I brought the original prototype to a trade show in Miami and came back with a legal pad full of people’s phone numbers – that’s when I had my first idea that it would be popular,” Swetland said. “Since then, the entire thing has been a combination of that idea with the closet business, and it’s perfected itself over the years.”

The year she designed CitiSleeper Swetland traveled to Haiti on a mission trip with Food for the Poor, an international charity relief organization based out of southwest Florida. This trip was the driving force that transformed CitiSleeper from a conceptual plan to a serious business model.

“When I was in Haiti with Food for the Poor, we were shown the back streets and alleys of poverty and I came back with a driving desire to help those women and children who were too impoverished to help themselves," she said. "I thought that if I could create something to turn into a national foundation, I could use it to help the women and children of Haiti. CitiSleeper became that foundation.”

CitiSleeper has donated a portion of its sales proceeds to Hope for Haiti since the day the business was established, the Swetlands said.  For the past 14 years, Citisleeper has been involved in an annual silent auction to benefit the impoverished country. Today the company still donates to Hope for Haiti and Food for the Poor.

The steady success that CitiSleeper has met over the past decade has allowed for tremendous growth – even in a struggling economy.

The CitiSleeper draws comparisons to Murphy Beds and sofa beds, but can transform from a sofa into a lounger, from a lounger into a bed – and back into a sofa again.

“You really can’t beat the convenience,” said Fred Swetland. “The only thing sort of like it is a Murphy Bed – but you can’t sit on a Murphy Bed like a sofa, and you certainly can’t build it around a window. On top of that, you have to move all of your furniture around when you fold a Murphy Bed out from a wall – so what have you really gained?”

In 2003, the company put its name on the map when it won the prestigious Pinnacle Award from the American Society of Furniture Designers, taking home first place in the Bedroom category. In 2004 and 2005, CitiSleeper earned runner-up recognition in both the Juvenile Furniture and Motion Upholstery categories.

“We were up against all the big names in the industry like La-Z-Boy and Barcalounger, so it was pretty exciting for a ‘Mom and Pop’ business like CitiSleeper to take home such prestigious awards,” Swetlands husband and business partner, Fred Swetland recalled.

Since then, CitiSleeper products have found their way into the homes across the nation and to the Virgin Islands.

“It’s given us an excuse to travel outside of Florida, and it’s also a good learning experience because when we’re out of the state, we can’t just run back to the shop any time we need to make adjustments,” said Fred Swetland, who credits the company’s success to staying small and family run. “When the economy was good, we were running a three-quarter million dollar business with just 6 people, and in the same vein, we’ve survived the recession by hunkering down and continuing to run the business ourselves.”

In 2009, CitiSleeper received its franchise documents. Since then the Swetlands, who were residents of Naples for 32 years, relocated to Bradenton to be closer to CitiSleeper’s Lakewood Ranch manufacturer. They also opened a CitiSleeper showroom in town at 608 26^th St W., not far from the Ware’s Creek house they restored.

CitiSleeper’s expansion into the Bradenton market is not the only big move the Swetlands are making. In 2012, the company will also open its first two out-of-state stores – one in Savannah, GA and the other in Detroit, MI.

The nationwide expansion will not lure the Swetlands to another town. The couple has decided to settle in Bradenton.

“We’ve fallen in love with Bradenton all together,” said Tinka Swetland. “We love the farmer’s market and the shows put on by the Manatee Players. There’s something that’s just so friendly and unassuming about this town. I think we’ll be here for quite awhile to come.”