bedroom furniture shops
After 70 years in the furniture business, his company is currently shutting down.
Ruth got his start getting his neighborhood friends to assist him haul mattresses and 70 years back driving a delivery truck. Health problems are forcing him to shut down his Gerard's Furniture shop.
"I is not going home to mope about it," Ruth said, sitting in the center of the Florida Boulevard showroom. "I'm gonna continue working. I must deliver this furniture all "
This is actually the second time that Ruth has had a going-out-of-business 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 crazy," he explained. "So I came back."
Ironically, the identical company that assisted 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 store doesn't have a website. "I really don't text and I don't email," he explained. "Only been a couple of years ago we got a computer for accounting."
Gerard's has a focus on American-made furniture.
"All that stuff on the internet, it is like going to the boats. It's gambling. You do not know exactly what you are going to have," he explained. "Some of the leather is seconds, some of it is rejects."
Ruth started working at the furniture industry during his senior year in Baton Rouge High at Lloyd Furniture Co., at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU, then joined the Coast Guard.
In 1953, he returned with the furniture store to Baton Rouge and to his occupation.
"I was making $35 per week in Lloyd Furniture, then I got a offer from Hemenway's Furniture on Plank Road," he explained.
During that time he had been a salesman in Hemenway's, Ruth got into hydroplane racing. He was a catalyst for the Tom Cat Baby, a ship with a Corvette engine that won the most prestigious and dangerous Pan American race on Lake Pontchartrain in 1958.
Throughout the ship races, Ruth became friends with Lewis Gottlieb. Gottlieb endorsed some teams that were racing.
Ruth got a call from Gottlieb, 1 day. The owner of Simon Furniture Co. had died and his children weren't interested in taking over the business. Would Ruth be interested in having a furniture store?
Gottlieb advised the store to be checked out by him, and if he was interested, he would help him finance the deal.
"It was a great store, and I knew I could do some good on the market," Ruth explained. The problem was money. However he'd have a life insurance coverage he purchased from a fellow member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb told me to bring him that insurance coverage to the bank," Ruth said. "He told me'You are going to create it."
The Furniture of gerard started in 1530 Foster Drive in 1966. There were three workers: a bookkeeper and the Ruths. In the shop, Ruth sold furniture Throughout the afternoon. In the evenings, he 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 find some of those items in the shop. Ruth told the guy he didn't have the money so that he got them to send three suites of Mediterranean-style furniture to Gerard and phoned a Virginia manufacturer. "That cranked up business," Ruth said. "We sold out the hell of the furniture."
A few years later, Ruth discovered about a store on Florida Boulevard that was up available for $500,000. Ruth checked out the building at 7330 Florida Blvd. and decided to buy it and fix it up.
"It cost $2 million to revive the entire building," he said. The loan was so large, it was divided between CNB and St. Landry Bank in Opelousas.
Gerard's Furniture's Florida Boulevard place opened around 1975. The store won nationwide acclaim for its completeness of this choice, which included art furniture, fabrics, rugs and accessories. 1 area is filled with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry prints at another area of the shop and includes a gallery of original straight from the source Louisiana art.
Ruth visits the furniture markets in North Carolina every six months to find items to round out the selection at Gerard's.
"Baton Rouge has always been interested in great taste and standard furniture," he explained. "The men and women who purchase fine furniture want to sit inside, would like to feel it, and if they have any knowledge at all, unzip it and see what's inside ."
Recently, he was diagnosed with lung disorder. That led the store to shut after meeting with his wife and four kids.
The decision was made to liquidate the organization because his children have professional jobs.
"I never got rich, but I managed to raise four sites kids, send them off to college -- and not have to pay any institutions or attorneys to get them out of trouble," he said.
Regardless of his years in business, Ruth stated he decided to close the shop.
"My family would go crazy trying to work out everything in the furniture shop," he said.
He made a point of helping his kids and eight grandchildren find items in the store to help decorate their houses.
Plans are to spend selling the stock off . The shop will close when all is gone.
Ruth said he's seen a boost in clients since announcing his organization shut down. 500 people showed up in the store, the day after it was announced he was shutting.
"We had them come from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years back to buy things on our economy," he said. "It has been rewarding."