It was a genuine pleasure to meet Maureen Tynan. She has a warm smile and kind eyes – traits she shares with her late father Bill who handed the family business down to Maureen. She is friendly from the start as she jumps in to tell me about her family’s legacy. It’s impossible not to feel the pride beaming from her as she points out her father and grandfather in photos lovingly hung on the walls of her showroom.
Tynan & Company (formerly John Tynan & Co), manufactures gorgeous and timeless residential and commercial furniture. The iconic antique pieces you’d see in historical places like The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel or even more likely, your grandparents’ house.
Kant-Sag™ (trademarked and patented by the Tynan family) boasts class and comfort that will last generations with their signature coil & web construction – values that are becoming appreciated by the younger generation.
While in the showroom and warehouse, Maureen (Aka Moe) shows me a beautiful chair undoubtedly manufactured by a chain that a customer has brought in for repair. It’s cracked and broken and clad in vinyl and you can practically see Moe’s concern for this seemingly beautiful, yet poorly constructed piece. The Tynan family with their Kant-Sag™ construction is unmatched in the industry. Quality construction is their guarantee.
Moe walks us through the front of the showroom to the warehouse area in the back which is full of furniture in need of repair or reupholstering. Shelves stacked with foam, long rulers, markers etc., ready to refurbish a customer’s wingback chair. There are boxes of old picture frames, some with antique images of Calgary back when the Tynan Factory was in the bustling inner-city area of 11 Avenue SW. The back room is literally filled above our heads with projects and when I ask when she expects to have all of these projects done she sighs and says “Well, should be all done by Christmas!” Of course, in my mind, it would take years to restore all of these pieces of someone’s home, but Moe and her team are extremely efficient. It’s trimmed down from the staff that once filled the factory to now a smaller, but very efficient team.
Tynan & Company have been tenants of PBA for more than 35 years and it’s safe to say that they are the thread that holds Phillips Park together. Although Moe and her family have been serving Western Canada with fine furnishings since 1929, there are currently no family members to take her place when she plans to retire.
Until then, Tynan & Company will remain a pillar of PBA Land & Development.