Functional yet fancy art gallery sets the table for expansion

At a dinner party in January 2020 someone asked new-to-Florida business owner Mitchell Siegel how he thought his gallery of handcrafted furniture and home décor pieces would do when it opened on ritzy Fifth Avenue South in Naples the next day.

The store, Cocoon Gallery, uses imported exotic wood from Southeast Asia for its creations — pieces that cost up to $60,000 and count a bevy of well-heeled people as clients, including business titans and sports celebrities. Its products adorn fancy establishments, from rotating through Saks Fifth Avenue stores to the Hotel Clinique in Anguilla to the tony J House Hotel in Greenwich, Connecticut. Siegel opened the original Cocoon in Greenwich in 2009, and the Fifth Avenue store in Naples in early 2020 was the second location. Confidence was high.