Maureen Wallenfang
Appleton Post-Crescent
Published 8:13 AM EDT Apr 22, 2019
If armoires and end tables could talk, it would be worth pulling up a chair to listen to the stories.
Like how new Gabriel Furniture employees balked at going alone to the third floor to turn off the lights, even though they were told ghosts in the old building were friendly.
Or what was overheard as multiple generations of shoppers walked up the creaky grand staircase.
Or how the store’s squawking cockatiel loved children but took a bite out of co-owner Joe Wells’ hand, making the two lifelong foes.
Gabriel Furniture ends its 91-year run April 29 as a downtown Appleton institution. Customers are coming in to say goodbye to retiring owners Joe and Ruby Wells.
“They come in to hug you and they start crying and then we start crying,” said Ruby, who is famous enough from TV ads to go by one name. “We feel good and we feel sad.”
They’re selling off the inventory but weren’t ready to erase their history. They got four offers to buy their buildings at 201-211 E. College Ave., now in a TIF district, and chose the Klister family of developers who said they wanted to keep, rather than level, the 131-year-old main building, converting it into apartments called Gabriel Lofts.
The building sale, for an undisclosed amount, will be finalized May 13. The city’s assessed value of Gabriel’s four adjacent buildings, a total of 35,000 square feet, is $762,700.
FORE Development + Investment, the Klisters’ firm, figures the purchase and renovation will total $5.4 million. Everything down to the plumbing has to be redone. The main building hasn’t had running water since 1978 and had its restrooms in its adjacent buildings, the former Pilgrim Shop and Shirley’s.
More: Conversion of Gabriel Furniture into downtown Appleton apartments to begin in May
Before it was a furniture store, the main building was the Konemic Lodge of the International Order of the Odd Fellows. The fraternal order built it in 1888 and used it for meetings, offices, pool hall and a ballroom.
Joseph Gabriel opened his furniture store here in 1928. Joe Wells joined the store in 1974. Soon after, Joe met Ruby kittycorner at the Gimbels’ lunchcounter.
The couple bought Gabriel’s inventory and the first two buildings in 1988. The business grew to more than $5 million in annual revenues selling upper-middle-priced furnitures and was the top single independent store in the country selling Smith Brothers Amish furniture.
In renovating, the Klisters have wooden floors, transoms and pressed tin ceilings to evaluate.
They’ll remove the metal exterior, which was added to modernize the building in the 1960s.
“Our hope is that the original brick is in okay shape and we are able to retain as much of the character as possible. However, until we take off the metal façade, we won’t know exactly what is there,” said partner Tom Klister.
The reason the Wellses sold the building but decided to dissolve the furniture business, was because they felt that old Mr. Gabriel’s lessons, which they embraced, were a relic of a bygone era.
“He said that quality means something and longevity means something. The biggest thing I took from him was customer service,” Joe said. “Even at the cost of losing money, it was still important to take care of the customers. Whatever it takes. If you need scaffolding to get furniture to a second floor, we’re going to do it. People don’t want to work that way anymore. This can’t be replicated.”
Contact Maureen Wallenfang at 920-993-7116 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @wallenfang.
More: Appleton approves redevelopment contract for Gabriel Furniture
More: The Buzz: Gabriel Furniture to close
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