By Justin Fenton
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Robert Deardorff is general manager of the 102-year-old Davis Furniture store downtown. Photo by MEGGAN BOOKER/The Cincinnati Enquirer

OVER-THE-RHINE - By many accounts - including his own - Bertram Davis owned Main Street.

For much of the last century, the store founded by his late father was a retail powerhouse, drawing customers to its six-story brick showrooms and its cavernous array of furniture, appliances and other household items.

In an era long before the big chains, D. Davis Furniture was a home-grown superstore.

But shifting consumer habits, the onslaught of suburban chain stores and time finally caught up with Davis Furniture. Today, the store will close forever, quietly ending a 102-year reign in Cincinnati.

"During their heyday, I don't think there was any store that could compete with Davis," said Aubrey "A.J." Johnson, a retired Army veteran who has been Davis' caretaker for 20 years.

"There were a lot of stores around, but Davis at that time was the tops."

It's hard to pinpoint the exact reason for the closure - general manager Bob Deardorff, who after 35 years with Davis Furniture refers to himself as "the new guy," claims the catalyst was the city's 2001 riot that left the store's front display window smashed and drove customers away.

But Johnson says the store had been in decline for more than 20 years as other retailers around it vanished.

City officials say the store simply failed to keep up with the changing marketplace.

Davis himself claims the reason is the influx of "cocktail bars" in Over-the-Rhine changing the neighborhood, a bitter irony for a private man who never smoked or drank.

Today, Davis, 84, manages the business from his room in a Montgomery nursing home, where he has been bedridden with a debilitating muscular condition since November. For the previous two years, he called the shots over the phone from his home when he could no longer make it to the store every day.

He still basks in the glory of Davis Furniture's heyday and is the personification of the screaming ads that adorn the store's windows and advertisements: "See our 5 windows!" "We carry our own accounts!" and "6 months same as cash!"

He speaks in grandiose terms, looking at the ceiling and making sweeping gestures with his trembling hands as he describes other businesses' awe at his ability to run his business the way he ran it - providing loyal service at a fair price, "the Davis way."

A family business

The store opened in 1902 on Sycamore Street, started by Davis' father, David, as a door-to-door company. The youngest of six children, Davis began working in the store at age 15, trimming the windows and stacking the displays.

After graduating from Hughes High School, he joined the store as a salesman, holding that position until his father died in 1955 and turned the reins over to his two sons, Milton and Bertram.

A devout Jewish family, they followed the custom of having the oldest son take charge of the family business, but the brothers shared responsibilities until Milton's death in 1989 from prostate cancer. David, Milton and Bertram were the store's only owners.

At its height in the 1980s, Deardorff estimates the store had $6 million in sales. Newspaper clippings hanging around the store back up Davis' grand claims - "Furniture Supermarket? Davis soars to new heights as others play it cautious" reads one headline. Another touts Davis as "leader in furniture, appliance and carpeting sales" despite being located on the "seamier side" of downtown.

Associates say Davis could entertain clients on all of six showroom floors at once. He smooth-talked manufacturers into giving him better deals than his competitors and to give him more time to pay off the merchandise.

As persistent as they were with distributors and competitors, the Davises were generous to their customers, working with those struggling financially and implementing a 6-month, no-interest pay plan that engendered customer loyalty.

"It rocked the city. It rocked the state," Davis said, pointing with both hands like a cowboy firing two guns into the air. "They said, 'How does Davis do it? How does Davis do it?' "

While their customers represented generations of Cincinnatians, the store's employees also were loyal. Cashiers stayed around for 30 years, a cleaning lady for 40.

"The Davises were a good family. They were here to help," said Katherine "Betty" Cole, 48, who is leaving the store, along with six co-workers, after working there more than 25 years as a bill collector.

Departure of customers

Davis' reputation and charisma couldn't offset the drain on Main Street as business after business moved out. It is the last on a strip where once were a shoe store, dry cleaner, a savings and loan, department stores and lady's dress shops.

With them went the customers, to malls out in the suburbs and chain stores.

Deardorff acknowledges the store may not have kept up with the times. Their inventory didn't reflect the more modern preferences of downtown dwellers.

After fighting losses for several years by pumping several million dollars of his own money to keep the store alive, Davis was approached by his lawyer about closing.

Neither Bertram nor Milton married or had children, leaving no heirs to turn the store over to as their father did to them.

The building will be put up for sale, making way for its first new tenants in more than a century.

As for Davis, he has not set foot in the store in two years, and though he said he intends to visit on its last day and thank his workers for their loyalty, Johnson is unsure. "His mind wants to go, but his body won't let him," he said.

Whatever merchandise is left will be sold to a liquidator. But today, there will be no flashy close-out sale, no "everything must go" advertisements.

"At the end of the day, we'll just lock the door," Deardorff said.

E-mail jfenton@enquirer.com