"Mr. Castro [was a] genius not only at designing a piece of furniture... but at marketing his product."
Dennis Hevesi journalist
In Depression-era America, Sicilian immigrant Bernard Castro (1904-1991) spotted a niche in the market. Noting that New Yorkers did not have much money to spend on luxuries and that their apartments in the city were cramped, he proposed a bed that could be folded into a sofa during the day, significantly increasing available living space.
Naming the beds "Castro's Convertibles," he sold them from his loft store P.N Twenty-first Avenue. The only convertible sofa otherwise available was known as a davenport, which was difficult to open and close and did not look like a sofa when folded. One night Castro and his wife found that their four-year-old daughter had managed to open their convertible; they realized that this could be a major selling point.
Castro's other masterstroke was recognizing the power of advertising on television. He was the first person to buy a local advertising spot from the single television station in New York. The commercial was also the first to feature a child, his daughter Bernadette, who showed how easy it was to open the bed. His slogans bragged that his invention was "the first to conquer living space" and that conversion between sofa and bed was "so easy a child can do it."
For a time all sofa beds were referred to as Castro's and he became a millionaire. In total Castro sold more than 5 million of his convertibles before retiring.
