furniture stores
Ruth got his start at the furniture business receiving his neighborhood friends to assist him haul mattresses and 70 years ago driving a delivery truck. Health problems are forcing him to close down his Gerard's Furniture shop.
"I is not going house to mope about it," Ruth said, sitting in the middle of the Florida Boulevard showroom. "I'm going to keep on functioning. I got to deliver this furniture all ."
This is actually the second time that Ruth has had a sale. When he turned 65, Ruth brought in an outside company to help him sell off the inventory.
"I went home, and after about 10 days, I went stir crazy," he said.
Ironically, the company that assisted him with all the retirement sale back in 1996 is assisting him with this going-out-of-business sale.
Ruth, 87, still does business like he always did. His store doesn't have a website. "I don't text and I do not email," he said. "Just been a couple of years ago we have a computer for bookkeeping."
Gerard's includes a focus on American-made furniture made with premium leather.
"All that stuff on the internet, it's like going into the ships. It is gambling. You do not understand what you going to have," he said. "Some of the leather is seconds, some of it's rejects."
Ruth started working at the furniture industry during his senior year at Baton Rouge High at Lloyd Furniture Co., at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU, then joined the Coast Guard during the Korean War.
He returned to Baton Rouge and also to his occupation.
"I had been making $35 a week at Lloyd Furniture, then I got a offer from Hemenway's Furniture on Plank Road," he said.
He was a salesman in Hemenway's, Ruth got into racing. He was a driver for your Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine which won the most prestigious and dangerous Pan American race Lake Pontchartrain in 1958.
Through the boat races, Ruth became buddies with Lewis Gottlieb. Some teams that were racing were endorsed by gottlieb.
One afternoon, Ruth got a call from Gottlieb. The owner of Simon Furniture Co. had died and his kids weren't interested in taking over the enterprise. Would Ruth be interested in having a furniture shop?
Gottlieb told the store to be checked out by him, and if he was interested, he would help him finance the offer.
"It was a nice shop, and that I knew I could do some good over there," Ruth explained. The issue was money. However he did have a $10,000 life insurance coverage he purchased from a member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb told me to bring him that insurance policy to the lender," Ruth said. "He told me'You are going to make it."
Gerard's Furniture started in 1530 Foster Drive in 1966. There were three employees: the Ruths and a bookkeeper. At the store, Ruth sold furniture during the afternoon. In the evenings, he delivered.
At that time, the trend in furniture has been Victorian - and Spanish-style furniture. A Atlanta furniture salesman visited Gerard's Furniture and advised Ruth he had to get some of those things in the store. Ruth told the man he didn't have the visit the website money so he got them to ship three suites of furniture to Gerard and called a Virginia manufacturer. "That cranked up business," Ruth explained. "We sold the hell out of the furniture."
Ruth heard about a shop.
"It cost $2 million to revive the whole construction," he said. The loan was so big, it had to be divided between CNB and St. Landry Bank in Opelousas.
Gerard's Furniture's Florida Boulevard location opened around 1975. The shop won nationwide acclaim for its completeness of this choice, which included art furniture, fabrics, rugs and accessories. 1 area is filled from the early 1970s with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry has a bunch of original Louisiana art and prints in another part of the shop.
To round out the selection Ruth visits with the furniture markets in North Carolina every six months to find items.
"Baton Rouge has ever been interested in good taste and traditional furniture," he explained. "The people who purchase fine furniture want to sit inside, want to feel this, and when they have any knowledge in any way, unzip it and see what's inside it."
Recently, he had been diagnosed with chronic lung disease. That led the shop to shut after meeting with his wife and four kids.
Because his kids all have professional occupations, the choice was made to liquidate the business.
"I never got rich, but I managed to raise four kids, send them all off to school -- and not have to pay any associations or visit the site lawyers to get them out of difficulty," he said.
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 said.
He also made a point of helping eight grandchildren and his kids find items in the shop to help decorate their houses.
Plans are to spend the upcoming few months selling the inventory off in Gerard's. The store will close when everything is gone.
Ruth said he's seen a boost in customers since declaring his organization was shutting down. 500 people showed up in the store, the day after it was announced he was shutting.
"It has been rewarding."