furnitureland south
Ruth got his start at the furniture industry getting his neighborhood buddies to help him haul mattresses and driving a delivery truck. Now, health issues are currently forcing him to shut down his Gerard's Furniture store.
"I am going to continue working. I must deliver this furniture all "
This is the second time that Ruth has had a going-out-of-business sale. When he turned 65, Ruth brought to help him sell the stock off.
Paradoxically, the company that assisted him with all the retirement sale back in 1996 is assisting him with this sale.
Like he always did, ruth, 87, nevertheless does business. His shop does not have a site. "I really don't text and I don't email," he explained. "Just been a few years ago we have a computer for accounting."
Gerard's has a focus on luxury furniture.
"All that stuff on the world wide web, it is like going to the ships. It's gambling. You don't know what you going to have," he said. "A number of the leather is seconds, some of it is rejects."
Ruth started working in the furniture business during his senior year in Baton Rouge High at Lloyd Furniture Co., then at 1126 North Blvd.. After graduation, he attended LSU, then joined the Coast Guard.
He returned with the furniture store to his job and to Baton Rouge.
He was a salesman in Hemenway's, Ruth got into racing. He was a catalyst for the Tom Cat Baby, a boat with a Corvette engine that won the most prestigious and dangerous Pan American race on Lake Pontchartrain.
With Lewis Gottlieb, Ruth became buddies Throughout the boat races. Gottlieb backed some teams.
Ruth got a call from Gottlieb. The proprietor of Simon Furniture Co. had expired and his kids were not interested in taking over the enterprise. Can Ruth be interested in having a furniture shop?
Gottlieb advised him to have a look at the shop, and he'd help him fund the offer, if he had been interested.
"It was a great store, and I knew I could do some good over there," Ruth said. The problem was money. However he did have a $10,000 life insurance policy he purchased from a fellow member of the check this Red Stick Kiwanis Club.
"Mr. Gottlieb told me to deliver him that insurance policy into the lender," Ruth explained. "He told me'You're going to make it."
Gerard's Furniture opened at 1530 Foster Drive in 1966. There were three workers: a bookkeeper and the Ruths. In the shop, Ruth sold furniture during the afternoon. In the evenings, he also delivered.
At that moment, the trend in furniture was Victorian - and Spanish-style furniture. A Atlanta furniture salesman detected Gerard's Furniture and told Ruth, he had to get some of those items in the shop. Ruth told the man he didn't have the money to buy the furnitureso that he got them to ship three suites of furniture to Gerard and phoned a Virginia maker. "That cranked up business," Ruth explained. "We offered the hell out of the furniture."
A few years after, Ruth heard about a shop on Florida Boulevard that was up available for $500,000. Ruth checked the construction at 7330 Florida Blvd. and decided to buy it and fix it up.
The loan was really big, it was split between CNB and St. Landry Bank in Opelousas.
The Florida Boulevard location of Gerard's Furniture opened around 1975. The store won acclaim for the completeness of this selection, which included art, furniture, fabrics, rugs and accessories. One area is filled from the early 1970s with George Rodrigue prints. His son Larry prints in another area of the shop and includes a gallery of original Louisiana art.
To round out the selection at Gerard's, Ruth visits with the furniture markets in North Carolina.
"Baton Rouge has always been interested in good taste and standard furniture," he said. "The people who buy fine furniture want to take a seat inside, would like to feel this, and when they have any knowledge at all, unzip it and see what is inside ."
He was diagnosed with lung disease. That led him to close the store after meeting with four children and his wife.
Since his children have professional occupations, the decision was made to liquidate the business.
"I never got rich, but I was able to raise four children, send them off to college -- and not have to pay any associations or lawyers to get them from trouble," he explained.
Regardless of his years in business, Ruth stated he decided overnight to close the store.
"My family would go crazy look at more info trying to figure out everything at the furniture shop," he explained.
He made a point of helping eight grandchildren and his children find things in the shop to help decorate their own homes.
Plans are to spend selling all the stock off . When everything is gone, the shop will close.
Since declaring he was shutting down his business, Ruth said he's seen a increase in customers. 500 people showed up in the store, the day after it was announced he was closing.
"We had them come in from 20, 30, 40, even 50 years back to buy things on our economy," he said. "It has been rewarding."