Martin & MacArthur opens its 10th retail store today at the Sheraton Waikiki as the company marks 50 years of making drool-worthy koa furnishings. It is the eighth store the company has opened since the new ownership took over Aug. 8, 2008.

"Eight-eight-oh-eight," said CEO Michael Tam. "It was a happy time."

Now, "we’re growing. Even in a recession we’ve increased the number of stores from two to 10, and … we’ve brought more jobs into Hawaii, too."

The new 2,500-square-foot store, near the Sheraton Waikiki entrance, will carry the company’s renowned furniture as well as home accessories and wearable accessories made either by the company’s Kalihi woodworking staff or its stable of some 200 crafting vendors.

The company has focused much of its retail store expansion amid Hawaii resorts, with stores at the Grand Hyatt Kauai; the Shops at Wailea, Whaler’s Village and the Westin Maui Resort & Spa on Maui; the King’s Shops at the Waikoloa Beach Resort on Hawaii island; and on Oahu in Hilton Hawaiian Village, Outrigger Reef on the Beach and now the Sheraton Waikiki.

An Aloha Tower Marketplace store closed years ago, prior to the purchase of Martin & MacArthur by Tam and Simon McKenzie. Founder Jon Martin remains a minority owner, Tam said.

"Visitors are very interested in getting something real and made in Hawaii," said Tam. "All of the new craftsmen we’ve brought in have really come on strong with the visitors, and it’s really helped us to differentiate ourselves from other retailers."

The local artisans making everything from koa boxes to raku and glass works, koa watches and koa-framed sunglasses to fine jewelry include Gregg Smith, Bobby Yamauchi, Chris Lowry, Jeanne Graham and Billie Gabriel, to name just a few. Many of the Kalihi workshop craftsman joined the company as apprentices, worked their way up to journeyman status and on up to the caliber of master craftsman — a process of around 15 to 20 years. The company has grown to 30 workshop craftsmen from the 18 on staff in 2008.

The desire for honest-to-goodness made-in-Hawaii products rang through in a visitor satisfaction survey conducted by the state a number of years ago, said Carol Pregill, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii Inc., a trade association.

In the case of Japanese visitors, "in the 1980s it was all about European luxury goods … but (now) the visitor is different and their focus was on made-in-Hawaii products to take home," she said.

Those sorts of Hawaii-made products helped many Hawaii-based stores expand their merchandise and price mix and, as a result, helped many of them not just hang on through the toughest part of the recession, but do "better than that," said Pregill.

The company also has stores at Ala Moana Center and Ward Centre, which are far more likely to draw kamaaina as well as visitors.

Despite Martin & MacArthur’s increased Oahu store count, sales at the Ala Moana location are higher now than in 2006 and 2007 before the recession, Tam said. "Our sales are actually higher than when we didn’t have four other stores" on Oahu.

In short, the company has not cannibalized sales. Rather, "hopefully we’re making the pie bigger," as more people are coming in more regularly, Tam said.

Martin & MacArthur was founded by Jon Martin in 1961 as Martin Enterprises, a solo operation in which the craftsman loved to create but didn’t like the administrative part of doing business. He became friends with Doug MacArthur, the Kakaako leasing agent who collected his monthly rent, and they became business partners. Yes, MacArthur is distantly related to the general of "I shall return" fame, but he was more closely related to the late James MacArthur — "Danno" of the original "Hawaii Five-0" fame.

Further expansion of store locations and merchandise is likely to include handbags and perhaps, one day, stationery, Tam said.

"The only thing we’re not utilizing is sawdust," of which it has drums-ful. The company has found a paper-making company that might use the koa sawdust to make specialty writing paper for stationery, note cards and the like.

"You gotta have vision," Tam said.

Reach Erika Engle at erika@staradvertiser.com.