by Hurricane Ian destroyed Bacon’s Furniture in Port Charlotte, Florida, but thanks to a heroic effort to rebuild the business from the ground up, it’s now prettier than ever
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Veteran furniture retailer Bill Bacon, who owns Bacon’s Furniture in Port Charlotte, Florida, used to think he had seen just about everything in the furniture business, with his store spanning four generations and 47 years in the same place.
But everything he has seen pales in comparison to what greeted him one morning about two years ago.
His store was gone.
On Sept. 28, 2022, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Port Charlotte, with one edge of the storm and its 165-mile-per-hour winds directly over the 128,000-square-foot showroom. It was said to be the deadliest hurricane to hit Florida since the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.
Bacon said that 16 air conditioning units and 1,100 solar panels were blown off the roof and left twisted like pretzels on the ground, with high winds and torrential rain inside the building.
“Everything inside was destroyed,” says Bacon.
The parking lot was left — and Bacon says he agreed to let the county government use it. Within 48 hours of the storm’s passing, the parking lot was turned into a regional rescue and operations hub. With support from government officials, utility companies and dedicated volunteers, more than 10,000 meals and other essential supplies were made available each day from the Bacon’s Furniture parking lot.
In all, the store took more than a year and a half to get operational again — and wasn’t fully operational until late June this year, when the last department, which was patio, was fully rebuilt and stocked.
“Now we are back and we are on the good side and we are real thrilled about what the store looks like,” says Bacon. “It is a brand-new store, ceiling to floor, and new furniture and everything.”
A challenge
“As we have been going through this, we have had our highs and lows,” says Bacon. “The lows are when everything has been destroyed and how do you get back together and try to get people together, and make insurance claims, and keep 81 employees when they are hurting. Their homes were damaged, too. We couldn’t take deliveries because our vendor’s warehouse was destroyed.”
Another problem was that customers asked for refunds because the store could not make deliveries — and the customers needed the money back to use as deductibles for their own homeowners insurance so they could make repairs to their own homes.
“What ended up was that we were strong enough financially to survive and help our people as much as we could,” says Bacon.
Bacon says he reached out to vendors and factories and asked them to help if they could. Many did. And long-term customers said that although they needed furniture to replace their own when it was damaged, they would wait for Bacon’s to reopen.
“I decided that if they wanted me to stay in the business, I would,” says Bacon. “The factories and the customers wanted me to stay and a lot of outside designers said ‘please stay.’ I have two sons and we are going to stay. We have built back better than it has ever been.”
Time to pick up where he left off
Bacon has a philosophy in life that rests on three consumer purchases.
“You need a quality mattress, you need good tires for safety and you need to buy a good chair because you deserve it,” he says. “We don’t sell tires, but we do sell the other two.”
Several years before both a pandemic and a hurricane would propel business in Florida into what is often called interesting times, Bacon’s consolidated six smaller locations into one large showroom, with half a traditional high-end Bacon’s and the other half devoted to an Ashley HomeStore.
Bacon says that because an increased number of price points broadened his audience, it effectively ended a downturn he used to go through every year. Those who are well off will buy a Bacon’s offering from a Telescope or a Tropitone, say, while those of more modest means will buy an Ashley.
The point is that everybody buys something — and that is something that has picked up again since he has reopened.
“I had a customer, an older customer, just bought two Ashley bedrooms and a nice chair and ottoman,” Bacon says. “He’s retired and his grandkids come down once a year and he couldn’t care less what the furniture is in the bedrooms, but when he sits down after dinner, he wants to be comfortable.”
Retailers on the coast
Any advice on retailers who are, right now, in the middle of hurricane season?
“I had never dealt with insurance companies before with over $10 million in damage and I wasn’t familiar with it,” Bacon says. “I know about making a claim on a fender bender but not about this.”
As soon as the storm ended, Bacon looked up at his destroyed roof and was about ready to jump off of it. He said people were lining up adjusters to look at damage, but he didn’t know how to deal with them — and suggests, early on, that retailers talk with a knowledgeable attorney.
“When you don’t have electricity and water is all over the floor is not a good time to have an adjuster come in,” says Bacon. “Have an insurance company and an attorney before you do.”
Bacon says that he found himself in a 7-month-long dispute with an insurance company over whether he could, in the midst of his claim, sell off merchandise that could still be sold. He wanted to sell it so that his employees could have at least some commission pay. It has finally been resolved, but he still has some unsold furniture from that time.
“We were doing everything we could to survive,” he says. “Factories were the same way — we didn’t owe the factories any money — we were debt-free — but with no income coming in, you can get beaten up pretty quick.”
Two pieces of advice: Stay debt-free and own your own real estate.
“I have learned a lot on this one; I have never seen anything like this,” he says. “I took the attitude that this is how insurance works. It’s not how I do business, but overall, it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It is a prettier store than I have ever seen, and the factories who stepped up to the plate and stood by me, it will pay dividends for them down the road.”
