Pulaski Furniture Company Background

Founded half a century ago in Pulaski, Virginia, and taking the name of the town as its own, Pulaski Furniture was originally established as a maker of bedroom and dining room furniture. From that point on, Pulaski rapidly carved out a niche for itself by becoming a leader in the production of curio cabinets, designed for the express purpose of displaying collectibles. Pulaski continued to expand and diversify, adding accent pieces, occasional tables and hand painted armoires. In 1985 the Ridgeway Clock Company was acquired, adding grandfather, wall and mantel clocks to our line. To further extend the product line, Dawson Furniture of Webb City, Missouri, a manufacturer of both promotional and unfinished furniture was purchased.

Pulaski Veneer and Furniture Corporation were incorporated on October 28, 1955, when a group of individuals decided to start a furniture manufacturing operation in a closed RCA Cabinet Shop. RCA Victor had closed the plant they were operating in Pulaski in 1948 due to cost considerations and business conditions. The area economy was depressed with a large number of people out of work, especially those that had worked at the closed plant.

The plant was restarted in the heart of downtown Pulaski and began making a few inexpensive bedroom suites incorporated under the name of Pulaski Veneer and Furniture Corporation. Business was not a total success in this very cyclic industry with some partial paychecks being from in kind goods such as hams and flour from the Richardson farms, also located in the county.

Generally business was good with demand for home furnishings strong. Designs were simple, designed for price and ease of manufacture as the factory personnel's skill level developed.

The Corporation acquired its first permanent showroom space in Chicago at the American Furniture Market in October of 1957. In 1960, the Corporation acquired Morris Novelty Corporation in Martinsville, Virginia producers of small occasional tables and other novelty furniture items, with many of the family members becoming part of the Pulaski group in both sales and manufacturing.

In 1962, the company name was changed from Pulaski Veneer and Furniture Corporation to Pulaski Furniture Corporation.

Thanks mostly to the new "Pulaski Look"( a highly stylized line that was a bit more difficult to manufacture but frequently looked more expensive than it actually was) business in bedroom and dining room was brisk and there was real need for more production capability. In 1973, Pulaski built a new case goods plant on the grounds of the new veneer mill, twice the size of its original Pulaski case goods facility. The Dublin, Virginia facility was the most modern of it's time and huge in proportions of the day at 550,000 square feet.

1975 saw the introduction of the furniture industry's largest selling collection to date, Keepsakes. This collection, designed by Leonard Eisen, began as a 45 piece "Turn of the Century" Victorian Bedroom, Dining Room, and Accent Furniture Collection. This collection eventually grew to 90 pieces, and in December of 1980 we cut our 1 millionth piece of Keepsakes.

In 1981, Pulaski bought its neighbor Coleman Furniture at auction. Coleman was a very large bedroom manufacturer having over 1,000,000 square feet of production and warehouse space. The face of Pulaski was changing from older manufacturer, to modern, fully capable facilities.

In 1985, Pulaski Furniture Corporation acquired Gravely Furniture Company, which currently operates as Ridgeway Clock Company, a world renowned clock manufacturer. The Ridgeway plant did well for Pulaski and the clock business was a good fit with the curio business as accent pieces for homes across America.

In 1988, Pulaski also purchased Craftique, a high end 18th century reproduction manufacturer in solid mahogany. The company also started an upholstery plant in Christiansburg, Virginia in 1989 and launched the Accentrics  line.

During the 1990's Pulaski began to establish its Asian connections, bringing in both ready to finish and completely assembled goods from overseas. This business has matured nicely with a separate division in charge of coordinating the import efforts with on site Pulaski quality personnel verifying the goods prior to shipment to the U.S.

In 1994, the Corporation under pressure to provide the entire spectrum of display furniture, built a highly mechanized curio manufacturing facility capable of maintaining it's presence in the low end market, which gave the company a complete product line across the wide economic spectrum. The small plant (75,000 square feet) aptly named "The Mini plant " was a complete manufacturing facility with rough milling capacity complete through finishing and packaging, generally accomplished in 3.5 to 5 days from cut lumber to boxing. Schedules can be completely changed 5 days from required ship date and the product has achieved full acceptance across the marketplace. The plant was put together with the best available technologies from around the world and to this day is one of the most efficient curio producing facilities in the world.

In 1997, the Corporation decided to restructure its product lines and refocus on it's core competencies. This necessitated selling the Craftique division and closing the upholstery division while shifting unique products to the most efficient plants for manufacturing. All this was accomplished in July of 1997 and this year Pulaski is a better, much more competitive furniture producer. In 2004, Pulaski sold its Ridgeway Clock Division to concentrate on its core businesses. With product lines more clearly defined by plant of manufacture, each facility is being better equipped to compete in its specific niche within the overall corporate marketing/manufacturing scheme.

The Pulaski success is directly attributable to defining our niche in various core competencies and servicing it well with proper products, prices, and quality to make our products highly desirable in a specific marketplace. 2005 marks Pulaski Furniture's 50th Anniversary. We celebrate our rich history and look forward to the next 50 years.