Veteran Holly Hill furniture store owner closes, sells store

Boyd Furniture Company at 7630 Old State Road has closed and its 24,000-square-foot showroom and warehouse space sold to a local business person with the intention for the store to continue in operation as a provider of household goods and glassware, according to Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic senior broker Neal Walsh.

Walsh said the process of selling the business building has been ongoing for  two years. At one time, a sale was made but then fell through.

“We found the perfect match,” Walsh said.

Walsh said due to confidentiality agreements, he was not at liberty to disclose the name of the buyer. But he did say expectations are the new business will open in the near future.

The sale of Boyd’s Furniture ends a 57-year run of meeting local furniture needs.

Owner Russell “Gene” Boyd, 81, says he is closing due to health issues.

Boyd said many of his longtime customers have “come in here and they are crying almost.”

“They are thanking me for being here all these years,” Boyd said. “I thank them because I was able to make a living.”

“I have done right well for myself,” Boyd said, noting he did not graduate high school. “It was hard work. Daddy had no money. He had the knowledge to get my butt to work and that is why I am where I am now because of him.”

Boyd related how his father, Russell, came to Holly Hill and started working for Carter Furniture in 1946. 

Boyd said his father purchased Carter Furniture in 1967 and went into the furniture store business by himself.

“We were downtown then,” Boyd said. “Hurricane Hugo tore everything up in the downtown area, so I had to come out here and build this building in 1990.”

Reflecting over the past 57 years, Boyd said the furniture store business has changed, “big time.”

“Computers were the big difference,” Boyd said, adding online sales have impacted his brick-and-mortar business.

Boyd credits his business success to one word: work.

“I would come in and work at 7 a.m. and go home at 6 p.m.,” Boyd said. “I did that for all these years.”

As part of the property transaction and sale, Boyd has requested from the county the property be rezoned to business industrial from its current zoning designation of forest/agricultural.

Orangeburg County Council Feb. 5 gave unanimous first reading approval to rezone the property’s two acres as requested for the purpose of maintaining a furniture wholesaling, warehousing, processing, office and administrative use.

There was no written or public opposition to the request.

The rezoning request regularizes the zoning designation to business industrial, according to Walsh.

The area has been zoned forest/agriculture despite the fact that Boyd’s has been in operation at the location since 1990. A car dealership was across the before the furniture store located to the area.

Zoning did not come into effect in the county until 2008.

Boyd said he has been paying commercial taxes since 1990. 

He said there will eventually be efforts to change the entire area business industrial.

“I paved the way for them,” Boyd said.

While Boyd’s Furniture in Holly Hill is closing, Boyd’s brother, Jimmy, will continue to own and operate Boyd’s Furniture in St. George.

For more information about the St. George location call, 843-563-6982.