Boll Furniture closing its doors after 69 years

Boll Furniture Co., a Charleston mainstay for 69 years, is closing, the company announced in an advertising flyer.


The flyer says, “It’s sad but true, we have made the difficult decision to close our doors in Charleston forever.”
The store’s going-out-of-business sale will start Thursday with a special event for preferred customers and invited guests, according to the flyer.
The company’s six-story building at the foot of the Southside Bridge has been sold, according to the flyer.
The late Charles Boll Sr. and his wife, Juanita Miller Boll, established Boll Furniture on the West Side. The company’s Web site tells the story: “In 1933 Charlie Boll came to Charleston from Ohio with his two brothers. They were looking for work and wanted to build a future here. Charlie arrived in town with two pairs of pants and two shirts; one set for work and one for Sundays. He went to work for Union Carbide, but a layoff in 1938 forced him to open a new and used furniture shop.
“In the early years, Charlie spent much of his time going into people’s homes and attics to appraise old pieces of furniture, and disassemble them so they could be carried out and reconstructed in the store for resale.
“After serving in WWII, Charlie bought out his brothers’ shares in the company and gradually with the help of his beloved late wife Juanita, built the store. It was Juanita’s talent and personality that transformed us from a neighborhood furniture store to a quality interior design company with a statewide reputation.”
In 1974 the store was moved into the 65,000-square foot building at 900 Virginia St. E., which it occupies today.
Boll Sr. retired from the furniture business at age 65 but stayed active in his other business, Boll Medical, until his death at age 97 last July. Charles Boll Jr., his son, retired from the business last year. The store marked the occasion with a retirement sale.
Charles Boll Jr.’s daughter, Marian Boll Weems, became manager of the business last year. Weems could not be reached for comment this morning. The person who answered the phone at Boll Medical said Charles is out of town.
In an interview with the Daily Mail last July, Weems credited her late grandmother, Juanita Miller Boll, with much of the elegance and style that is Boll Furniture. “She turned it into a store with a great design tradition,” Weems said. “She helped make this place a beauty.”
Weems said in that interview that Boll Furniture planned on being in downtown Charleston “for a long, long time.”
Besides furniture, Boll offers custom interior design work, wallpaper, fabrics for custom-made draperies, window blinds and oriental rugs. Boll has sold Serta mattresses for more than 40 years.
The company has about 20 full and part-time employees.
Furniture stores like Boll face increasing pressure from less expensive chain stores, including Big Sandy, Value City, Target and Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, there is new competition. Ashley Furniture opened its first retail store in West Virginia last month at Southridge Centre.
Downtown Charleston’s last furniture store loss occurred in 1998 when Dondale Furniture Galleries moved from 112 Capitol St. to the former Lowe’s building in Cross Lanes. That store subsequently closed.
Even with the loss of Boll and Dondale, the Charleston market has numerous furniture stores, including Contemporary Galleries, Pugh Furniture and Kyle Furniture downtown and Wells Home Furnishings on Corridor G.
Contact writer George Hohmann at 348-4836.