Calvetta Brothers opens fifth store in Bath

by Sheldon Ocker

Opening a Calvetta Bros. Floor Show outpost in Bath Township was a long time coming.

It took three years for Austin Calvetta – the youngest of three brothers who own the five-store company that specializes in selling flooring – to get his wish and lease two spaces in the shopping center that most locals know as the location of Vacarro’s Trattoria, 1000 Ghent Rd.

In another sense, it took 24 years for the brothers to find their way to Bath. They opened the first Calvetta Bros. store in 1999 in Bedford Heights.

“When we first opened, we only had a 1,000-square-foot store,” said Calvetta.

The brothers currently operate stores in Westlake, Northfield and Mentor in addition to Bath and a now-larger store in Bedford Heights, which also is home to their warehouse.

Why Bath?

“There is something about Bath we liked,” Calvetta said. “It feels like a small community. That’s us. We’re a small, family-owned business. So we like the feel of it. We always heard that Bath was a good market, and it is still in range where we can operate out of our Bedford Heights distribution warehouse.”

Calvetta said he had his eyes on the Ghent Road space early in the process, but one of the two stores was unavailable until a retailer that sold high-end, mostly hand-made rugs moved out.

“We were looking right before the pandemic, but then we had to put everything on hold,” he said. “We really wanted this spot.”

Calvetta said he had no desire to become part of the high-density retail and restaurant district on West Market Street in Montrose.

“It’s too busy, and there’s too much going on,” he said. “We wanted to be somewhere that’s a little easier to find, and just be able to tell people we’re here.”

The showroom on Ghent is filled with samples of carpet, vinyl flooring, ceramic tile, hardwood, laminates and natural stone.

Calvetta said his inventory is made up mostly of medium to high-end merchandise. According to him, the least expensive merchandise can come back to bite the store owner.

“We can get down and dirty if we want to, as far as product goes, and get something pretty inexpensive,” he said. “But we have found … we’re not real comfortable putting it in and backing it up, because that’s where you’re going to have problems. So we try to carry better products so we don’t have problems.”

Some of the quality carpeting brands Calvetta carries include Fabrica, Masland, Stanton Rosecore and Stanton Antrim. Anderson and Preverco are two of the higher-end brands of hardwood flooring Calvetta stocks.

Many homeowners use flooring to make a fashion or design statement. But what’s “in” varies with the generations.

“It used to be that over 60% of our business was carpet and all the hard surfaces made up the rest,” Calvetta said. “Now, basically carpet is 30% of our business, luxury vinyl is the next biggest category, then wood.”

Calvetta said his father owned a carpet store in the 1970s and ’80s but sold it to his partner. His three sons – Lance and Jason are the others – opened their first store in 1999 after working as carpet installers as teenagers attending Brush High School in Lyndhurst.

The Bath store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday. ∞

Photo: Austin Calvetta stands with his dog, Oscar, in his new store. Photo by Sheldon Ocker.