Furniture and homewares retailer OKA Direct has bought a Georgian house in the Cotswolds to convert into a showroom that it claims will set it apart from the rest of the high street.

The retailer will deck out the house at Broadway in Worcestershire with items from its catalogue. It plans to open the house by mid-August.

OKA Direct financial director Tracey Alston said: “Our customers are very loyal and willing to travel to us. Our products are unique and to appreciate them fully, we feel they need to be displayed in such surroundings. We don’t know anyone else doing it.”

The retailer – which is run jointly by Annabel Astor, Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s mother-in-law – expects the house to attract customers from surrounding areas such as Oxfordshire and Cheltenham, as well as visitors passing through the area.

OKA Direct this week posted a 24 per cent rise in sales year on year for the first half. The company sells from 11 showrooms, as well as a web site and mail order catalogue. Its largest showroom, at Saffron Walden in Essex, is recording sales 20 per cent higher than forecast at present, according to Alston. “We really hit the ground running [in Saffron Walden],” she said.

However, she added that OKA Direct is not immune to the present economic downturn, which has had an adverse effect on a number of furniture retailers. “It would be foolish to assume the strong sales will continue,” she said.

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