- Grand Home Furnishings
Infobox_Company
company_name = Grand Home Furnishings
company_
company_type = Private
foundation = 1910
location =Roanoke, Virginia
key_people =President : George B. Cartledge, III
industry =Furniture retailers
revenue = Private
products =Furniture ,Bedding ,Mattress es
homepage = [http://www.grandhomefurnishings.com/ www.grandhomefurnishings.com]Grand Home Furnishings is a regional chain of
furniture stores headquartered inRoanoke, Virginia , in theUnited States . As of May 2006, Grand operates fourteen retail stores inVirginia , two inTennessee , and one inWest Virginia . Grand recently announced plans to open a retail store in the growingSmith Mountain Lake community ofFranklin County, Virginia . Grand has warehouse furniture outlets in Roanoke andSpartanburg, 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 , andphonographs . 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, theShenandoah 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 its 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 aLynchburg, 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 was a sponsor of theWinston Cup Wood Brothers racing team based inStuart, Virginia until 2004, and its drivers and cars frequently made promotional appearance at the chain's stores. Grand currently sponsors Kevin Wood's No. 20 Grand Home Furnishings Ford in the NASCAR sanctionedWhelen All-American Series .In 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.Distributions centers are located in Virginia and Tennessee.
External links
* [http://www.grandhomefurnishings.com/ Grand Home Furnishings]
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