A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff Once upon a time in Waterbed retail shop out West, I was prompted to look up from my office work to see what commotion was happening on the El Camino Real outside our San Mateo, California store only to observe the Waterbed I forgot I was filling now bulging […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff Having had the good fortune of traveling worldwide doing business with waterbed designers, manufacturers, and retailers around the globe, it has been interesting to see how the waterbed industry evolved uniquely in different countries and especially interesting to see how the market has survived and thrived in a number […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff For some of us who grew up in the pop culture which evolved over the latter half of the 20th century, the mention of sensory attenuation or sensory deprivation might conjure up images of the 1980 horror movie “Altered States”. And while mid-century experiments involved extreme sensory deprivation (i.e. […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff Back in the 2010’s a longtime friend of mine from the German waterbed industry contacted me with an unusual request. The Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main was needing to replace the waterbed in a Thom Merrick sculpture they had had on display since 1988. So, as […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff Swept up in the popularity wave of the 1970’s and working for a waterbed shop to supplement my starving design student lifestyle, but being raised with a mid-western show-me state of mind, it took me a minute to buy into the logic of fluid suspension sleep. And though having […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ by Irvin Saathoff There was a time back in the 1980s when it seemed like there was a brick & mortar waterbed retail shop on every street corner. Having only just begun in earnest after the modern day waterbed was patented in 1971, and as none of the nationwide retailers like Sears […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ sponsored by: InnoMax Corp. In 1871, a waterbed was in use in Elmira, New York, for “invalids”. It was briefly mentioned by Mark Twain in his article “A New Beecher Church“, which was published in The New York Times on 23 July 1871. Twain wrote: “In the infirmary will be kept one […]
A Waterbedtime Story™ sponsored by: InnoMax Corp. While the health benefits of temperature controlled Waterbeds for arthritis relief and various other maladies were well documented by the 1980’s, it didn’t start out that way. As alluded to in the previous episode, many a ‘modern day Waterbed’ was purchased back in the early 1970’s without a […]
Waterbedtime Story™ sponsored by: InnoMax Corp. Though having gone from 20% of the US market share in their heyday to a blip not even measured by most mattress surveys today, there are many who would argue Waterbeds never went away. My first recollection of experiencing a Waterbed was around 1970 after a buddy of mine […]
Longtime SSA Member InnoMax® Corporation, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, is our Member Spotlight feature this month. We asked them to send us a company summary, and give us an idea of the steps it took to get them where they are today. Here is their write-up. Today one of the largest sleep products manufacturers in […]
