Loss isn’t expected to help competitors in Easton, where array of stores is a big draw.
By Joe McDonald Of The Morning Call
Lipkin’s Furniture, a fixture in downtown Easton and part of what’s been called the ”furniture mecca of the Lehigh Valley,” will close after 72 years.
The store’s departure this spring could hurt both its competitors and Easton, said Kim Kmetz of the city’s Main Street Initiative, because competition draws shoppers to all of the city’s furniture stores.
”It’s going to be a hit for the downtown,” Kmetz said. ”It impacts our furniture market here.”
Owner Philip Lipkin, the last in a three-generation family-run business, said Friday a health problem he declined to talk about and the fact his children are pursuing other careers led to his decision.
He said the family’s secret to success has been service to customers, even if it meant fixing a 25-year-old La-Z-Boy recliner with free parts or finding a way to repair a sofa or a leg on a dining room table chewed up by the family dog.
The Easton store, which opened in 1935 and employs 14, is one of more than a half-dozen furniture shops in the city. Lipkin’s had other stores in the Lehigh Valley: one in downtown Allentown that went out of business after 10 years in 1965 and another in Bethlehem that closed in 1983.
While several restaurants have opened in downtown Easton in recent years and major commercial and residential construction projects are in the works, several prime buildings are vacant. The Lipkin’s closing will add to the list.
The store occupies two buildings on S. Third and Ferry streets, a block south of Centre Square.
Kmetz said Easton has been a place where people could shop at a variety of furniture stores.
”We have three really strong furniture stores: Lauter’s, Monarch and Lipkin’s,” she said. ”Then to back them up, there’s Utopia, which has the corner on the wicker furniture; Sherwood for Kids, which has the best-known children’s furniture in the area; Paul Douglas Home Furnishings, and some of the smaller specialty stores that back all that up.”
Those furniture stores, she said, make Easton the ”furniture mecca of the Lehigh Valley.” Rather than drive each other out of business, Kmetz said, the competition draws shoppers to all of the stores. If someone looking for furniture can’t find it in Easton, she said, it probably can’t be found.
Others share that view.
”I think they enhance one another,” said Michael Dowd, vice president of Easton Initiatives for the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and a Northampton County councilman.
Lipkin agreed, saying when one store closes, it doesn’t mean a competitor will get new customers.
Lipkin, whose grandfather and father ran the business before him, started at the store at age 5 when he rode on delivery trucks on Saturday mornings.
He joined his father, the late Cecil Lipkin, in 1971 when he returned to Easton after three years as a fifth-grade teacher in Cleveland.
Now, 36 years later, Lipkin said he’s lost some of the drive needed in a competitive business.
Though the chamber would like to see someone buy the business, that’s not what Lipkin is planning.
The store is open for now. About 10,000 customers on the store’s mailing list will be invited to a private sale, then the rest of the inventory will be cleared out at a public sale after Easter, he said.
Although Lipkin said his business has been good over the years, he described the last two years as particularly challenging. He feels too many people have moved into large homes, and that has left them unable to afford new furniture.
Lipkin, who will turn 62 in April, said his two children aren’t interested in entering the family business.
He is the last owner in a business started by his grandfather, also named Philip, who immigrated near the turn of the 20th century from Liverpool, England, at 16. He later rented a storefront on a side street in Coatesville, Chester County, and began selling items for the home.
Philip Lipkin planned to open a store in Bethlehem, but died before it was completed. The court named two bank trustees to take over the business, which began to fail. Philip’s widow, Elizabeth, intervened, took over the business and saved the Coatesville and Bethlehem stores.
By that time, her sons, Cecil and Vernon, had joined the business. In 1935, Cecil expanded it by opening the store in Easton. For 10 years beginning in 1955, he also ran a Lipkin’s store on Hamilton Street in Allentown.
The Easton store, once known as Lipkin’s Colonial Corner, was remodeled in 1992 and given the look it has today.
Philip Lipkin’s parents, Cecil and Eleanor Lipkin, were philanthropists who supported the arts and charities. The Lipkin Theater in Northampton Hall at Northampton Community College is named after Cecil Lipkin, a founder of the college.
