Time is running out on a 48-year-old business.
For owner Andy Brogden, it’s bittersweet that the Village Home Furnishing & Clock Shop is closing Dec. 31 in Carmel’s Clay Terrace.
After all, the 60-year-old Zionsville resident has spent more than half of his life running the shop. He will miss the interaction with customers.
“We’ve sold to a second generation of clients, so we’ll miss that aspect of it,” he said. “But I’m ready for the next stage in life.”
His wife, Julie, and all four grown children, Tara, Heather, Drew and Chris, helped in the store off and on.
Brogden moved the shop from Zionsville’s Main Street to Clay Terrace eight years ago.
“Our business is literally the best since we’ve been here,” said Brogden, who is holding a going-out-of-business sale. “People got stuck at home (during the pandemic shutdown in spring), so they are remodeling and sitting on the same old sofa, so they are like, ‘We need new furniture.’”
However, his business was going to have to relocate because of redevelopment at Clay Terrace to add apartments and a hotel in his shop’s portion of the shopping center. He said he couldn’t negotiate a rent deal for a new spot in Clay Terrace that made financial sense.
Plus, he said it’s time to slow down a bit.
“Three years ago, I was offered a manufacturer’s sales representative (position) for Elran Furniture, so I’ve been traveling to three or four states doing that,” he said. “That’s what I’ll do full time, so I don’t have to work seven days a week now. I do my own deliveries, so my back is looking forward to that.”
Brogden, a 1979 Zionsville Community High School graduate, began working at the Village Clock Shop in 1983.
“I managed it from 1983 to 1997, left for a couple of years to run my mother-in-law’s company, and then had the opportunity to buy the business in 1999,” he said.
The business started in 1972 exclusively as a clock shop. Brogden slowly began adding other furniture pieces.
“The Zionsville store was not configured to have big pieces,” Brogden said. “When we got more space, we ventured more into the furniture.”
The shop has had a full-time clock repairman, Dave Grannan, for 30 years. Grannan will still do clock repair, so the phone number, 317-569-0035, will remain.
