Raymour & Flanigan Furniture: A family business story & much more

The story of Raymour & Flanigan Furniture Company, Inc. actually begins with another family furniture business: M. Goldberg & Sons. Meyer Goldberg and his sons Moses and Benjamin established this furniture and jewelry business in 1910 on North State Street in Syracuse after consolidating Meyer’s furniture store with Benjamin’s jewelry store. Pooling their business resources, the trio of Meyer, Moses, and Benjamin launched M. Goldberg & Sons. 

The business grew and, in 1921, the company opened stores in Fulton and Oswego. Another family member and company employee, Solomon Eli Goldberg, participated in opening these two stores. Solomon (Sol) worked for M. Goldberg & Sons until he left in 1946 to establish Raymour Furniture Company at 146 James St. in Syracuse. Sol and his wife, Mollie, had three sons — Seymour, Bernard, and Arnold. Bernard and Arnold joined their father in the furniture business. Seymour owned an antique store on Long Island called Raymour Antiques. Since the Goldberg family name already was taken, Sol, Bernard, and Arnold called their new furniture company Raymour, after Seymour’s antique business. Twenty-year-old Bernard and 16-year-old Arnold co-owned the new furniture business, but named Sol as company president, a position he would retain until his death in 1960 at age 69. 

Along with working in the furniture business for about 40 years, Sol Goldberg also was active in the community as a member of the International Order of Odd Fellows, the Zionist Organization of America, the Young Men’s and Ladies Benevolent Association, and the Mt. Sinai Lodge 864 of the Free & Associated Masons. He also worshiped at Temple Adath Yeshurun. 

Raymour Furniture moved from 146 James St. to 242 North Salina St. in 1950, but, in 1963, moved a third time to a larger, four-story building located at 229 North Salina St., once occupied by the former Markson Bros. Furniture Company. The new store offered dinette, living room, and bedroom furniture, kitchen appliances, as well as carpeting and home décor. The store also offered a 60-car parking lot behind the building. By 1963, Bernard Goldberg was Raymour Furniture’s president and Arnold became secretary-treasurer. Seymour also had joined his two younger brothers as company VP.

Raymour Furniture continued to expand in January 1966 by purchasing the entire inventory and fixtures of the Robert’s Furniture Store at 216 North Salina St. for $350,000 (worth about
$3 million in today’s dollars). Raymour then opened a new store at 421 South Warren St. in March 1968. Accompanied by their wives, Mayor William Walsh, Onondaga County Executive John Mulroy, and bank officials, Bernard and Arnold cut the ribbon on their new store. The brothers had completely renovated the former Ajemian and Sagenkahn buildings at 417-421 South Warren St. for the site of their new furniture store. To help defray the cost of the renovation, the brothers received a $50,000 (worth about $400,000 today) low-interest federal rehabilitation loan, the first of its kind awarded by New York State, and processed by the Syracuse Urban Renewal Agency. 

Raymour Furniture celebrated its Silver (25th) Anniversary in April 1971. The celebration included a cake-cutting ceremony and featured models dressed in silver attire. At the time, Raymour was recognized as one of the largest furniture and appliance emporiums in Central New York. The company had grown from a few family members to 35 employees.

In November 1972, Raymour opened its first furniture warehouse showroom at Seneca Mall on Route 57 in Clay. This new warehouse showroom was to offer “carry-out merchandising.” The huge warehouse at the Seneca Mall was the length of two football fields, had a 30-foot-high ceiling, and held about $3 million worth of furniture stacked on storage racks. The warehouse also featured an adjacent showroom comprised of 250 room settings that were decorated with a variety of furniture styles. When a customer purchased an item in the showroom, that purchase information was transmitted to warehouse staff. While the customer paid for the merchandise, a warehouse employee would retrieve the item from a storage rack and transport it to a loading dock where the customer retrieved it. If the merchandise was too large for the customer’s vehicle, store employees would deliver it the next day. The company also redesigned its store on South Warren Street to mimic this new concept in furniture buying. Bernard Goldberg said at the time, “This is a furniture revolution taking place in most major cities. The furniture customer of today is interested in savings, elimination of delivery delays, and wants a wide selection.” The idea of selling furniture and appliances via a warehouse showroom concept was immediately successful and attracted customers from Albany and Rochester, as well as Pennsylvania and Canada. 

That same year, Bernard Goldberg’s son, Neil, joined his father and uncle in the business. He graduated from Syracuse University’s School of Management in 1975 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. 

Raymour Furniture expanded its concept of warehouse furniture and appliance shopping into the town of DeWitt in 1975. The new warehouse and showroom that opened at 3430 Erie Boulevard E. was the company’s third location. Raymour had developed one of the largest merchandise inventories in the state and its three stores were open seven days a week. 

Opening the warehouse showroom on Erie Boulevard East had been phase three of a five-phase expansion goal that began in 1972. Phase one involved recruiting executive personnel with specialized experience in buying, advertising, merchandizing, and finances. Phase two had planned and constructed the warehouse furniture showroom in the Seneca Mall. Phase four comprised a complete remodeling of the South Warren Street store. Company officials also announced that Phase five also was underway, searching for another warehouse showroom location.  

After working for several months in 1976 with Touchette Corporation, a Syracuse–based computer-services business, Raymour Furniture developed a computer software program that allowed Raymour and other furniture companies to track inventory, merchandise control, and sales and profit figures. Known as the Raymour-Touchette system, the software also allowed Raymour to maintain information for billing, accounts payable, and profit & loss. This software system was the first of its kind in the American furniture industry. Raymour also made the software available to members of the Retail Furniture Marketing Guild, a 1,300-member group of major furniture retailers across the U.S. It greatly simplified the company’s operations, saved customers money, and allowed Raymour to expand again in the future.

Raymour Furniture expanded into Camillus in 1978 when the Ethan Allen Manor House moved to Fayetteville, making their 25,000-square-foot space available to Raymour. 

In 1982, Neil Goldberg succeeded his father, Bernard, as company president and CEO. Bernard and Arnold then became co-chairmen of the company. 

The company then built a 60-foot-high warehouse in Clay in 1986. Raymour Furniture had purchased the former Sperry-New Holland warehouse and hired VIP Structures to remodel it, expand the available space from 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet. Raymour now had six stores and 170 employees, and was planning to open additional stores in the late 1980s. 

The year 1990 represented another pivotal year for Raymour Furniture. In January, the business acquired Flanigan’s Furniture, a competitor with 14 stores in the Rochester and Buffalo areas, renaming itself Raymour & Flanigan Furniture, Inc. The acquisition also increased the number of stores to 20. As the merger of the Raymour and Flanigan’s stores unfolded later that year, the company decided to close Flanigan’s stores in Poughkeepsie and Buffalo; close Flanigan’s warehouses in Buffalo, Olean, and Rochester to consolidate warehouse operations in Clay; and reduce the employee roster from 600 to 500.  

In May of that year, Raymour also closed its store at 421 South Warren St. in downtown Syracuse, adding its name to the growing list of long-time businesses that were moving to the suburbs. The store had six employees and less than $1 million worth of inventory. Store employees noticed that customers usually window-shopped downtown but later bought items at the suburban stores. Neil Goldberg stated that closing the Warren Street store was an emotional experience for company officials. “We’ve never closed a store in the history of the company, and to close what was once our flagship store is not something we relish doing.” By this time, the company had four new stores in North Syracuse, Oswego, Utica, and Watertown. 

By the mid-1990s, Raymour & Flanigan had grown to become a 27-store enterprise and had expanded outside of New York into Springfield, Massachusetts, Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Hartford, Connecticut. By 1998, the number of Raymour & Flanigan stores had increased to 33 with 1,200 employees. 

Arnold Goldberg passed away on Oct. 27, 1999, at age 69. He had retired about 20 years earlier as a co-chairman of the board with his brother, Bernard. Along with founding the successful furniture company, Arnold was very involved in civic and social duties, including being president of Temple Adath Yeshurun and as a member of the Anti-Defamation League in New York City. In June 1999, the Anti-Defamation League awarded the Goldberg family its American Heritage Award at its annual dinner in New York City. Arnold was survived by his wife, Lois, and his children, Deborah, Susan, and Michael.

At the dawn of the 21st century, Raymour & Flanigan had increased to 45 stores in five states, with 2,000 employees. By July 2001, the company built a 112,500-square-foot shopping center that included a 72,000-square-foot furniture superstore on Route 31 in Clay. To accomplish the superstore concept, the company closed two smaller stores in Camillus and North Syracuse, and the store in Liverpool was converted from a showroom into a service center. The Seneca Mall store was scheduled to close soon after opening the superstore. The displaced employees were offered positions at the new superstore. was converting its warehouse showroom at Seneca Mall into a 37,000 square foot retail clearance center. This was the third such outlet for the company, with two others previously opening in Poughkeepsie and Philadelphia. 

Raymour & Flanigan was also considering further expanding into the Baltimore-Washington, DC area, Boston, Pittsburgh, and New York City. The total number of company stores had risen to 47 in six states in 2002.

Raymour & Flanigan began to expand its presence in the New York City metropolitan area with the acquisition of Futurama, a furniture retailer consisting of three stores, in 2005.

Then, in 2007, Raymour & Flanigan acquired the business, inventory, and real estate of Alpert’s Furniture Showplace, headquartered in Seekonk, Massachusetts. The acquisition increased to 71 the number of Raymour & Flanigan stores. By then, the company also had expanded into Delaware and employed 3,800 total people. 

Raymour & Flanigan continued its expansion in the New York City metropolitan area in 2008 by purchasing 18 Levitz Furniture stores when that company liquidated its assets due to bankruptcy proceedings.

Also in 2008, Seth Goldberg, Neil’s son, joined the business after graduating from Yale University and University of Pennsylvania Law School. Seth took on the role of senior VP of marketing, e-commerce and information technology, where he helped pioneer the company’s expansion across digital platforms while growing its customer base. Seth and his siblings, Adam and Shira Boschan, represented the third generation of Goldbergs to manage the furniture business. 

Bernard Goldberg, co-founder of the original Raymour Furniture in 1946, passed away in April 2010 at age 84. Bernard had remained company chairman until his death but had not participated in company affairs for several years. He had served in the U.S. Army during World War II, where he was awarded the Bronze Star. Bernard then graduated from Syracuse University in 1948. Along with co-founding Raymour Furniture, Bernard was very active in social and community organizations. He was president of Temple Adath Yeshurun, a board member of the New York State Division Human Rights, as well as a founding trustee of the Syracuse Jewish Community Foundation of Central New York. 

Raymour & Flanigan had expanded to more than 140 stores in the Northeast by 2019 and, in 2020, was declared the Northeast’s largest furniture and mattress retailer. In September 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, Raymour & Flanigan was looking to hire 1,000 new employees to handle a sharp increase in sales. People staying at home during the pandemic were buying more furniture and mattresses, as well as home office and multifunctional furniture. Sales also spiked in outdoor furniture. Unable to go away on vacation, people were upgrading and investing in their homes. Toward the end of 2020, Raymour & Flanigan operated 142 stores and distribution centers and had 6,053 employees.

Raymour & Flanigan announced another management change in January 2021. Neil Goldberg, company present and CEO since 1982 announced that he was transitioning to chairman and appointing his son, Seth, as the next company president in February. Neil’s brother, Steven, and his cousin, Michael, who both joined the company back in 1977, would become vice chairmen. Seth’s brother, Adam, is now VP of marketing, and their sister, Shira Boschan, is current VP of people development. Shira’s husband, Jared Boschan, is VP of e-commerce. 

Raymour & Flanigan is committed to fostering sustainability, by operating five recycling facilities, including its first recycling facility located in Clay, which are dedicated to recycling shipping waste. These sites employ more than 100 recycling associates who focus on ensuring materials are processed in an acceptable manner according to best practices outlined by the United States government. The company also is committed to becoming more energy efficient by operating a solar-panel site spanning more than three acres to harvest energy and electricity, as well as installing solar panels on its warehouses. Raymour & Flanigan recycles 99 percent of all packaging materials, resulting in 200 million pounds diverted from landfills since 2002.

At Onondaga Historical Association’s museum in downtown Syracuse, Raymour & Flanigan is featured in an exhibit on the Jewish community of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Called “From Laying the Foundation to Forging Ahead,” the exhibit highlights the contributions made by local Jewish citizens to the community, business, entertainment, and athletics. Raymour & Flanigan’s company history is presented as an integral component of the exhibit’s business section.        

Thomas Hunter is curator of collections at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) (www.cnyhistory.org), located at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse.