Finish this familiar advertising jingle: "Salt Lake's best furniture buys are in Bountiful at . . . "
If you said "Lakewoods," you're right. But not for long.The store, Utah's oldest continuously operating furniture store, is going out of business. Owners blame competition and decisions made over the years by city leaders.
"We're an institution and we've hung in there by our toenails and with our own money," said Maxine Holbrook, wife of majority owner Dell Holbrook. "You know, it's really sad, but we don't have a lot of choices."
Furniture giants with massive advertising budgets have taken sales away from the smaller store. Coupled with the city's declining business atmosphere downtown, debts mounted that now make closing necessary, she said.
The family plans to sell remaining stock at bargain prices and then close the doors to Lakewoods Home Furnishings forever. "All of the manufacturers warranties will still be in effect and we will honor special orders that have been placed," said Stephen Holbrook.
Maxine Holbrook would like to see the large building, one of city's more visible structures, become part of a cultural arts center or even an entertainment center for area youth.
Whatever the case, the building will have to be sold or leased, not donated, she said.
Lakewoods originally opened in 1904 as Holbrook Smedley and later changed its name to Union Furniture, opening two more stores in Ogden. Eighty-nine years of doing business has created a lot of loyal customers and friends who will be missed, Dell Holbrook says.
"I've spent 62 years of my life there and have made a lot of special relationships," he said.
Decline of the business has been gradual but major problems can be traced "almost directly" to a three-month period in 1989 when the city was refurbishing Main Street, said Stephen Holbrook.
"We literally couldn't get customers to the door during that time," Holbrook said. "You could almost directly trace the problem in the business to that time period."
And zoning decisions by city leaders haven't helped, he said. "The city has zoned way too many areas for business . . . it has destroyed Main Street."