Legendary furniture brand Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams closes its doors

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, WTOP

LIFESTYLE

Legendary furniture brand Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams closes its doors

By Jura Koncius
Updated August 28, 2023 at 5:56 p.m. EDT | Published August 28, 2023 at 5:02 p.m. EDT



The Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams store on 14th Street NW. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

The furniture business of Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams once survived their personal breakup. But the 34-year-old company that became known as Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams could not survive its latest ownership by a family-run equity firm. ... Many of the roughly 800 employees got the word over the weekend, sparking chatter on social media. A sign taped on the Taylorsville, N.C., factory gate Saturday said: “Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams has recently and unexpectedly learned that we are unable to continue business operations.” A letter from interim CEO Chris Moye shown taped to the office door gave the grim details: “As you may know, the current economic climate has presented significant challenges to the furniture industry. … [The company] has recently and unexpectedly learned that we are unable to secure critical financing to continue business operations.”

A call Monday to the Stephens Group, the Little Rock equity firm that bought the company in 2015, was not returned. ... Gold, 72, who had retired as chairman and CEO of the company in 2019, learned the news last week. “I was devastated and in shock,” he says. “Both Bob and I are. And if I had to use one word, it’s heartbroken.” ... Gold says that, when he left the company just before the pandemic, “parts of it were in good shape, and parts were not.” The past few years unleashed a roller coaster of problems, with changing consumer demand and supply chain issues, and Gold says the bank and the equity firm could not come up with a way to keep the business going.

The company owns 24 signature stores, Gold says. The first opened in 2007, on Washington’s newly hip 14th Street NW, near Logan Circle. It rolled out an eco-chic green carpet for 500 guests, including Hillary Clinton, who reportedly owned a MG+BW dining table and chairs, but she did not attend. Its stores were among the first to allow dogs and have a line of designer dog beds.

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Gold and Williams, who met in New York, formed Mitchell Gold in 1989. Gold, a former furniture buyer at Bloomingdale’s, was the frontman whose corporate uniform included a denim shirt and Gucci loafers. Williams, a graphic artist who designed the line, could drill down on what consumers were looking for.

[ Mitchell Gold’s and Tim Gold’s D.C. loft ]

They bought an existing factory in Taylorsville, N.C., near the center of the sleepy U.S. furniture industry. Then they started shaking things up. Theirs was one of the first furniture plants in the state with air conditioning. They built an on-site gym, installed a health clinic and hired a chef to make seared salmon with mango salsa in the employee cafeteria. At their child-care center, kids sat on child-size club chairs and denim sofas.

Gold and Williams were donors to the Democratic Party and women’s rights groups, and they were very active in the LGBTQ+ community. ... In 1998, they sold the company to Rowe Furniture in a deal that allowed them to keep managing the business. Part of the reason for selling, Gold says, was that they are gay. “We weren’t able to be married, and we ran the risk of inheritance taxes if one of us died,” Gold told The Washington Post in 2007. “It could have bankrupted the company.”

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By Jura Koncius
Jura Koncius covers interiors and lifestyle for the Washington Post. Her White House coverage has chronicled historical renovations and State Dinner style. She covers the decluttering movement from Marie Kondo to Swedish death cleaning. For 20 years, she has hosted a weekly home and design Q&A. She won the 2022 Washington Post Eugene Meyer Award. Twitter https://twitter.com/jurakoncius

[Warpy]

1. "Equitu firm," of course.

Buy a business that's in the black, milk it like a cash cow, load it up with debt, close it down.

Old story.