Bohemian Home furniture store in Columbia SC closing doors

Metalwork cranes and mechanical tin gentlemen greet shoppers at Columbia’s Bohemian House furniture and art store, situated at 2720 Devine St.

Vintage watches wait guiding glass, clocks with animal faces keep time, lamps and rugs and paintings gathered about decades abound. On virtually each floor, brilliant yellow stickers declare “Sale!”

Bruce Schultze, 73, has run the shop for half a century, and this is the 1st storewide sale he’s at any time held. He and his husband or wife Denise Cellier need every little thing to go.

After 48 many years, Bohemian Dwelling is closing its doors.

In its initially iteration, Bohemian Home offered women’s dresses and pottery. Schultze labored for the original proprietors, afterwards purchasing the retail outlet from them. It was just one of the first significant-finish merchants to just take a opportunity on Devine Avenue.

Schultze credits the retailer and a couple other people on the road with kick-commencing the boutique vogue pattern that has taken about the corridor since.

“When we moved listed here 48 several years in the past, it was all the aged school companies,” he reported. There was a Piggly Wiggly down the road and a hardware store across the way, but there was nothing like what Bohemian Dwelling was making an attempt to do.

Usually a collector, Schutlze took the chance of obtaining his personal retail store to curate a place comprehensive of factors he cherished. Wood, pottery, jewellery — he gravitated towards just about anything with a character.

Selling clothes became anything to assist acquiring more artwork. It stored bread on the desk but it was not what they certainly loved. At some point they extra furnishings to the mix, and issues progressed from there.

“I begun to seek out out matters that you wouldn’t see anywhere else,” Schultze reported. “I speedily type of identified out that what was a lot more exclusive in the home furnishings and accent company was a lot more reducing-edge style and design.”

He watched New York City trade demonstrates for inspiration. In some cases he’d glance at 1,000 distinctive versions of a very similar product to locate the one particular that definitely spoke to him.

He admits it was challenging to uncover his customers at very first, and to a degree it’s remained that way.

“For yrs, a lot of stuff that we marketed wasn’t functional,” Schultze stated. “People basically weren’t that huge of collectors of just getting artwork, they have been more susceptible to buy points that would work as something else.”

A lamp, a chair, a couch. So Schultze started off searching for items that could be functional but that experienced their personal distinctive magnificence as well.

He developed an affinity for ornate lamps, and later on turned regarded for expensive, large-stop chairs.

Schultze acknowledges Bohemian Home has not been for the faint of coronary heart.

Between his wares are $300 lamps and $3,500 recliners, along with original art items, great jewelry and classic decor all priced accordingly. Some goods in the retail store have been there for a long time, just waiting around for the proper purchaser.

Probably fifty percent the men and women who wander by means of the front door transform about quickly and stroll out, he reported with a chuckle. But there have usually been a handful of who enter and find an oasis in the original and peculiar products Schultze has curated.

“It really turned out and finished up staying a store about what I would go and come across that I individually liked,” he said.

The store’s eccentricity became a promoting stage for many.

“I personally will definitely pass up Denise and Bruce,” said Alice Perritt, owner of House of Frames and Paintings on Devine Avenue. “You cannot go to Asheville or New York or Paris and come across one more keep like it.”

When she encounters people, she often encourages them to check out Bohemian Dwelling.

The store has experienced to make some adjustments about the many years, but general they’ve managed to obtain their market. It is been a productive business product for 50 {73375d9cc0eb62eadf703eace8c5332f876cb0fdecf5a1aaee3be06b81bdcf82} a century, supporting them survive the economic downturn in 2008, and the first turmoil of the pandemic.

But as the spot changes and rents boost, they would have to substantially adjust in get to survive, Schultze claimed. Fairly than re-indicator a lease, they’re deciding upon to retire.

When their doors officially shut at the end of August, Schultze will inevitably just take some of his beloved parts dwelling with him. He reported he’d just as happily stay running the shop eternally, but he’s also seeking ahead to making an attempt a thing new.

“You often listen to that idea, if you enjoy what you’re doing you’ll never get the job done a day in your existence. That was my circumstance,” he claimed.