Thomasville Furniture Industries

Thomasville Furniture Industries is a full-line furniture manufacturer once based in Thomasville, North Carolina, with dedicated galleries in more than 400 retail furniture stores. Additionally, there are over 160 Thomasville Home Furnishing stores which carry only Thomasville products. The company had been a subsidiary of Clayton, Missouri-based Furniture Brands International since 1995. Heritage Home Group bought most of that company's assets in 2013 and announced the end of Thomasville Furniture's operations in Thomasville in 2014.

Thomasville Cabinetry is crafted by MasterBrand Cabinets, Inc. a division of Fortune Brands Home and Security (FBHS). MasterBrand Cabinets produces Thomasville branded product for Thomasville Furniture Industries at several North American facilities, and sells the Thomasville Cabinetry brand exclusively through The Home Depot. Schrock Cabinetry of Illinois, for example, is one manufacturer that makes cabinets sold by the Home Depot with the Thomasville Cabinetry name stamped in it.

The famous Big Chair, an 18-foot reproduction of a Duncan Phyfe design (first erected in 1922 and rebuilt in 1951) still stands in the town square as a symbol of the mutual success of a now famous chair company - and the town that cherishes its nickname, "Chair City".

History

Thomasville Furniture began as Thomasville Chair Company in 1904, making 500 to 1000 chairs a day by 1905. Thomas Jefferson Finch and Charles F. Finch of Randolph County bought the company in 1907.

Lambeth Furniture began in 1901 and was sold to Knox Furniture in 1928 and Thomasville Chair in 1932.[1]

In 1968, Thomasville Furniture became part of Armstrong World Industries, which sold the company to Interco (later Furniture Brands International) in November 1995.[2]

Starting with the Spring 2011 High Point Furniture Market, Thomasville Furniture Industries moved its showroom space from Thomasville to the International Home Furnishings Center.[3] The five-story 225,000-square-foot former headquarters building, which was built in 1958 on East Main Street in Thomasville and also housed Drexel Heritage, was listed for sale in 2013. The 100 people still there were to be moved to Eastchester Drive in High Point, where Maitland-Smith and Henredon were located.[4]

In June 2013, Kathy Veltri, formerly of Arhaus, was named CEO of Thomasville, replacing Ed Teplitz, who had served in that post since November 2007.

Thomasville Furniture added the American Anthem collection in 2013. Although a few items are made with leather from China, the bulk of the American Anthem collection manufactured in Indonesia.

On January 21, 2014, the company's new owner, Heritage Home Group, announced that all operations in Thomasville would be shut down March 21. 84 jobs would be lost in the city.[5] Parent company Heritage Home Group, however, moved to Thomasville while work was being completed on its planned High Point headquarters.[6]

References

  1. ↑ Bob Burchette, "Thomasville: Ready for Fresh Start," Greensboro News & Record, September 23, 1990, Centennial section p. 82.
  2. ↑ "Thomasville sale to Interco complete". Retrieved 2011-12-05.
  3. ↑ "Thomasville, Drexel to move showrooms," Greensboro News & Record, February 27, 2011.
  4. ↑ Russell, Thomas (March 12, 2013). "Furniture Brands puts Thomasville offices on selling block". Furniture Today. Retrieved May 30, 2014.
  5. ↑ Craver, Richard (January 22, 2014). "End of an era: 84 to lose jobs as last 2 Thomasville Furniture plants closing by March 21". Winston-Salem Journal. Retrieved January 22, 2014.
  6. ↑ Arcieri, Katie (2015-05-19). "Heritage Home Group names interim CEO". Triad Business Journal. Retrieved 2015-12-04.

External links

Citations

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