APRIL 9, 2009 ISSUE
Business Spotlight
Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery—
Bringing Knowledge to the Confusing World of Home Furnishings
Gary Simison, pictured here, and his wife Wanda are the owners of Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery and Sim’s Warehouse Outlet in the High Country. Gary’s four decades in the furniture industry benefits the consumer through customer service, product knowledge and affordable price points. The Simisons’ business boasts 80 percent repeat business. Photo by Sam Calhoun
Forty years ago, back in 1969, Gary Simison was a recent college graduate looking for work. A student minister who completed a degree in business administration from Michigan State University, Simison decided to stay in Michigan and host an exchange student for a few months. To prepare for the exchange student’s arrival, Simison went to a local furniture store owned by a friend in search of bunk beds.
Unbeknownst to Simison, his friend’s sole employee at the furniture store had just been killed in a car wreck and the friend asked Simison if he would like to come work for him. Simison agreed, and four decades later he is the owner, along with his wife Wanda, of Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery, located at 225 Boone Heights Drive in Boone, and Sim’s Warehouse Outlet, located at 671-B George Wilson Road in Boone.
Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery is now 10 years old and is known across the High Country and region for its wide selection of furniture, mattresses, living room sets, bedroom sets, art selection and home accessories, as well as for its quality of merchandise, affordable price points and customer service. Today, Gary handles all of the company’s marketing, purchasing and manages the company’s eight employees from his store’s location on Boone Heights Drive. Believe it or not, this is a light workload compared to Gary’s former duties—he used to do everything, he said. Wanda works in the corporate office for Sim’s Furniture in Fleetwood, handling bookkeeping.
Even though Gary was never officially ordained as a minister, he still officiated more than 100 marriages and presided over more than 100 funerals. But his real calling turned out to be furniture.
After taking a job with his friend in 1969, Gary immersed himself in the furniture industry, learning the business, getting to know manufacturers and trying out different jobs. Eventually, Gary opened his own furniture store and manufacturing company in Traverse City, Mich., which he sold in 1976 in the hopes of moving down south. He believed that a new furniture manufacturing company would work in Western North Carolina based on the popularity of manufacturers in Hickory and High Point.
When Gary and Wanda relocated to the High Country, though, he took a job as a manufacturer representative, selling new furniture lines to stores all over the country. That job led Gary to a new position that required him to travel all over the country liquidating furniture stores that found themselves in financial trouble and without credit. Over the next 12 years, Gary and Wanda traveled to all 50 states liquidating furniture. Toward the end, however, Wanda was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was unable to travel.
“I became tired of traveling, and tired of traveling without my wife. When she was diagnosed with [multiple sclerosis] she could no longer travel,” explained Gary. “I had to be gone sometimes three, four, five months at a time and it got to be too much.”
That’s when Gary decided to settle down in the High Country and create some furniture work closer to home. In 1999, Gary and Wanda opened Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery at the Shoppes at Shadowline in Boone. At the time, the store featured mattresses and unfinished furniture, but as regional furniture stores started to fold, Gary took the opportunity to expand the scope of his business to include complete home furnishings.
After leaving Shadowline and a tenure at Boone Mall, Gary moved the store to Boone Heights Drive more than one year ago.
Through it all, Gary and Wanda have operated Sim’s Warehouse Outlet in coordination with Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery. The outlet features top-quality furniture that may have small scratches, more inexpensive furniture pieces and a large selection of mattresses—even more than at the gallery.
With hundreds of thousands of furniture manufacturers in the world, Gary prides himself on his filtering eye when it comes to high-quality furniture. A veteran of the High Point Furniture Market, Gary can tell when companies put out superior products and jumps at the opportunity to buy brands when they are hot—that is, when they produce top-quality furniture that carry good warranties for the customer.
“I always want to buy from a company that can back up their warranties,” said Gary. “Furniture stores don’t offer warranties; we back manufacturers’ warranties, and that’s why it’s so important to choose correctly.”
Gary also annually attends the Las Vegas Furniture Show and the Tupelo Furniture Market.
Step inside either locations of Sim’s Furniture and residents and visitors can find everything needed to fill a bare home, from lamps to art, from beds to frames and from couches to pillows. Brands such as La-Z-Boy, Sealy, Tempur-Pedic, Klausner and Berkline are scattered across the showroom, accompanied by lamps and lights of all shapes and sizes, bed frames, sofas, chairs, home furniture and art from Bob Timberlake. All of Gary’s furniture is made from solid wood—no particleboard found here—and most is made in the U.S.A.
Gary and his employees boast 80 percent repeat business.
“That says it all right there. Customer service is important here,” said Gary. “All of my people are highly trained in selling mattresses. We like to make a good match so customers are happy with their bed. And when young people come in, we want to give them a really good value, so they don’t have to come back anytime soon.”
Sim’s Furniture’s clientele includes second homeowners, retirees, local workers and local professionals—the whole spectrum, he said.
“And there’s always something on sale here,” said Gary. “You never know when people are going to want to buy furniture, so we try and make it appealing so it’s ready when they are.
“I’ve been in the furniture business since 1969, so I’ve got a varied background from working for many different furniture companies,” continued Gary. “I know what’s out there and how it all works, and I think that gives me an edge.”
Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery is located at 225 Boone Heights Drive in Boone. The store is open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday and closed Sunday. Sim’s Warehouse Outlet is located at 671-B George Wilson Road in Boone. The outlet is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday, closed Wednesday and Sunday. For more information, call Sim’s Furniture & Mattress Gallery at 828-265-2400, Sim’s Warehouse Outlet at 828-262-9886 or click to www.simsfurniture.biz.
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