home decor online stores
Ruth got his start in the furniture industry getting his neighborhood friends to help him haul mattresses and driving a delivery truck. Now, health issues are currently forcing him to close down his Gerard's Furniture shop.
"I am going to continue working. I got to deliver all this furniture."
This is actually the second time that Ruth has had a sale. Twenty-two decades back, when he turned 65, Ruth brought to help him sell the inventory off.
"I went home, and after about 10 days, I went stir crazy," he said. "So I came back."
Ironically, the company that helped him in 1996 back with all the retirement sale is currently assisting him with this going-out-of-business sale.
Ruth, 87 does business like he always did. His shop does not have a site. "I don't text and I don't email," he explained. "Only been a couple of years ago we got a computer for bookkeeping."
Gerard's has a focus on luxury, American-made furniture created with premium leather.
"All that stuff on the internet, it is like going to the boats. It's gambling. You do not understand what you going to have," he explained. "Some of the leather is seconds, some of it's rejects."
Ruth began working in the furniture industry during his senior year in Baton Rouge High at Lloyd Furniture Co., then at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU joined the Coast Guard.
In 1953, he returned with the furniture shop to Baton Rouge and to his occupation.
He was a salesman in Hemenway's, Ruth got into hydroplane racing. He was a driver for your Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine that won the prestigious and dangerous Pan American race Lake Pontchartrain in 1958.
With Lewis Gottlieb, president of City National Bank, Ruth became friends Throughout the ship races. Gottlieb backed some teams that were racing.
Ruth got a call 1 afternoon. The proprietor of Simon Furniture Co. had expired and his kids were not interested in taking over the enterprise. Would Ruth be interested in owning a furniture store?
Gottlieb advised him to check the store out, and he would help him finance the deal, when he had been interested.
"It was a great store, and that I knew I could do some good over there," Ruth explained. The problem was money. But he'd have a $10,000 life insurance policy he purchased from a fellow member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb advised me to bring him that insurance coverage to the bank," Ruth explained. "He told me'You're going to create it."
The Furniture of gerard opened in 1966 in 1530 Foster Drive. There were three workers: the Ruths and a bookkeeper. In the store, Ruth sold furniture Throughout the afternoon. In the evenings, he also delivered the things he sold.
At that time, the trend in furniture was Mediterranean- and Spanish-style furniture. An effective Atlanta furniture salesman detected Gerard's Furniture and advised Ruth he needed to get some of those items in the store to make it successful. Ruth told the man he didn't have the money to buy the furniture, so he phoned a Virginia maker and got them to send three suites of furniture on credit to Gerard's. "That cranked business up," Ruth said. "We sold the hell out of the furniture"
Ruth heard about a store on Florida Boulevard which was up available for $500,000. Ruth checked out the building at 7330 Florida Blvd. and chose to purchase it and fix it up.
"It cost $2 million to revive the whole building," he explained. The loan was really big, it had to be divided between CNB and St. Landry Bank in Opelousas.
The Florida Boulevard location of the home Furniture of Gerard opened around 1975. The shop won nationwide acclaim for the completeness of the choice, which included artwork furniture, fabrics, rugs and decorative accessories. One area is filled in the 1970s with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry prints at another area of the store and includes a bunch of original Louisiana art.
To round out the selection Ruth visits the major furniture markets in North Carolina.
"Baton Rouge has always been interested in good taste and standard furniture," he said. "The men and women who buy fine furniture want to sit inside, would like to feel it, and when they have any knowledge at all, unzip it and see what is inside it."
Through the years, Ruth has had health problems, including diabetes and cancer. He had been diagnosed with chronic lung disorder. That led the shop to shut after meeting with four kids and his wife.
The decision was made to liquidate the organization, Since his children all have professional occupations.
"I never got rich, but I was able to raise four kids, send them off to school -- and not need to pay any institutions or lawyers to get them out of difficulty," he explained.
Regardless of his years in business, Ruth said he decided overnight to shut the shop.
"My family would go crazy trying to figure out everything in the furniture shop," he explained.
He also made a point of helping his children and eight grandchildren find items in the store to help decorate their houses.
Plans are to spend promoting all the inventory off in Gerard's. The shop will close when all is gone.
Ruth said he's seen a boost in customers since announcing he shut down his business. 500 people showed up in the store the day after it was announced he was shutting. The following day about 400 more information people were there.
"We had them come in from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years back to buy things on our economy," he explained. "It has been rewarding."