refinishing a table
Ruth got his start receiving his neighborhood buddies to assist him haul mattresses for 50 cents an hour and driving a delivery truck. Health problems are forcing him to shut down his Gerard's Furniture store.
"I'm going to keep on working. 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 business to help him sell the inventory off.
"I went home, and after about 10 days, I went crazy," he explained.
Paradoxically, the firm that assisted him with all the retirement sale back is currently assisting him with this going-out-of-business sale.
Like he always did, 87, ruth , still does business. His store doesn't have a website. "I don't text and I don't email," he explained. "Only been a few years ago we have a computer for accounting."
Gerard's has a focus on high-end, American-made furniture made with premium leather.
"All that stuff on the world wide web, it's like going to the ships. It is gambling. You do not know what you going to get," he explained. "A number of this leather is seconds, some of it is rejects."
Ruth began working in the furniture industry during his senior year in Baton Rouge High at Lloyd Furniture Co., at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU joined the Coast Guard.
In 1953, he returned to Baton Rouge and also to his job.
"I had been making $35 per week at Lloyd Furniture, then I got a offer from Hemenway's Furniture on Plank Road," he explained.
He was a salesman at Hemenway's, Ruth got into hydroplane racing. He was a driver for your Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine which won the prestigious and dangerous Pan American race Lake Pontchartrain.
Throughout the boat races, Ruth became buddies with Lewis Gottlieb. Gottlieb backed some racing teams.
Ruth got a call one afternoon. The proprietor 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 store?
Gottlieb told him to have a look at the store, and he would help him finance the offer if he had been interested.
"It was a nice shop, hop over to here and that I knew I could do some good over there," Ruth explained. The issue was money. However he'd have a $10,000 life insurance policy he purchased from a member of the Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb advised me to bring him that insurance policy to the lender," Ruth said. "He told me'You're going to create it."
Gerard's Furniture opened in 1966. There were three workers: a bookkeeper and the Ruths. Ruth sold furniture at the store. In the evenings, he also delivered the things he offered.
At that moment, the trend in furniture has been Victorian - and Spanish-style furniture. An effective Atlanta furniture salesman detected Gerard's Furniture and advised Ruth, he had to find a few of those things in the shop to ensure it is successful. Ruth told the man he didn't have the money to buy the furnitureso that he got them to ship three suites of Mediterranean-style furniture on credit to Gerard's and phoned a Virginia manufacturer. "That cranked business up," Ruth explained. "We sold out the hell of that furniture"
Ruth heard about a store on Florida Boulevard that was up for sale for $500,000.
"It cost $2 million to revive the entire building," he said. The loan was really big, it was divided between CNB and St. Landry Bank in Opelousas.
The Florida Boulevard location of Gerard's Furniture opened great post to read around 1975. The shop won acclaim for the completeness of this choice, which included art, furniture, fabrics, rugs and decorative accessories. 1 area is filled from the early 1970s with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry includes a gallery of original Louisiana art and prints in another part of the store.
Ruth visits the furniture markets in North Carolina to round out the selection in Gerard's.
"Baton Rouge has ever been interested in good taste and traditional furniture," he said. "The people who buy fine furniture want to take a seat inside, would like to feel this, and if they have any knowledge at all, unzip it and see what's inside ."
He was diagnosed with lung disease. That led him to close the store after meeting with four children and his wife.
Because his children have professional occupations, the decision was made to liquidate the business.
"I never got rich, but I was able to raise four kids, send them all off to school -- and not need to pay any institutions or attorneys to get them out of trouble," he said.
Regardless of his years in business, Ruth stated he decided overnight to close the shop.
"My family would go mad trying to work out everything in the furniture store," he said.
He made a point of helping his children and eight grandchildren find items in the shop to help decorate their houses.
Plans are to spend promoting of the inventory off . When all is gone, the store will close.
Ruth said he's seen a boost in clients, since declaring he was shutting down his business. 500 people showed up at the store the day after it was announced he was shutting. The next day about 400 people were there.
"We had them come in from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago to purchase things on our economy," he said. "It's been rewarding."