Grand Home Furnishings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Grand Home Furnishings | |
 |
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| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1910 |
| Headquarters | Roanoke, Virginia |
| Key people | President: George B. Cartledge, III |
| Industry | Furniture retailers |
| Products | Furniture, Bedding, Mattresses |
| Revenue | Private |
| Website | www.grandhomefurnishings.com |
Grand Home Furnishings is a regional chain of furniture stores headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, in the United States. As of May 2006, Grand operates fourteen retail stores in Virginia, two in Tennessee, and one in West Virginia. Grand recently announced plans to open a retail store in the growing Smith Mountain Lake community of Franklin County, Virginia. Grand has warehouse furniture outlets in Roanoke and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Grand's stores and outlets are supplied by four distribution centers in Virginia and one in Tennessee.
The chain's first location was opened in downtown Roanoke in 1910 under the name Grand Piano Company and specialized in pianos, other musical instruments and related merchandise. During the 1930s the company added furniture, radios, and phonographs. When purchased in 1945 by the Carledge family, the name was changed to the Grand Piano and Furniture Company. In the 1950s, the chain began to expand outside of Roanoke into Southwest Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, and eventually other states.
Grand Piano and Furniture continued to sell pianos well after the company's focus had shifted to furniture. Grand eventually stopped selling pianos and assumed it's current name, Grand Home Furnishings, in 1998. Many in the Roanoke area still commonly refer to the chain as Grand Piano.
Grand may be best known for offering a cold, eight ounce bottle of Coca Cola to customers as they enter the store. The tradition began at a Lynchburg, Virginia store opening in 1953 and was soon adopted by the entire chain. Grand hands out over one million bottles of Coke per year.
Grand built a free standing location at Valley View Mall in 1991. This new store would become the chain's flagship in the Roanoke area after the closure of its landmark downtown Roanoke location in the late 1990s.
Grand has made NASCAR cross promotions a primary focus of its marketing efforts since the 1990s. The company is a sponsor of the Wood Brothers racing team based in Stuart, Virginia until 2004, and its drivers and cars frequently make promotional appearance at the chain's stores.
As of December 2005, industry newspaper Furniture Today ranked Grand Home Furnishings as the 58th largest furniture retailer in the US with annual sales of $111 million.
