Shamburger's Keeps Making Reproductions
Despite Uncertain Times

By Steve Row
News Leader Business Editor

Betty Shamburger knows that the business over which she is presiding has an uncertain future.

Nevertheless, this cheerful woman, who has helped run Shamburger's Antiques and Reproductions since 1972, remains optimistic that making authentically styled pieces of period furniture completely by hand will continue to attract just enough craftsmen and customers to keep the business going.

Shamburger's occupies a curious spot geographically in the Richmond area. It is a large, three-story, brick-and-frame building that formerly was a hotel on U. S. 1 (Brook Road), side-by-side with a cluster of fast-food restaurants near Azalea Mall.

Its architectural style is unlike that of any other building in the vicinity, and, despite its size, it often seems to be obscured by the large number of modern signs that crowd the area near the intersection.

No Catalog

It also occupies a curious spot among furniture-related retailers here. There is no catalog, no mass production assembly line, only the skills inside the heads and hands of its employees.

And if you want a variation on a Queen Anne or Chippendale style table or chair or bed, just say the word and your idea will be incorporated in the handcrafted piece being made.

Mrs. Shamburger, who became president of the corporation two years ago, said the company dates to 1930, when her husband's father, following the collapse of his retail store in the Depression, started selling rush-bottomed chairs that were made in a shop in which he had part interest.

He went from Raleigh, N. C., south to Jacksonville, Fla., before he sold any of the 18th century reproduction ladder-back chairs, but when he came north out of Raleigh he found slightly better economic conditions, and he started to sell the chairs in the Richmond area, near where Brookhill-Azalea Shopping Center is now, she said.

He formed a friendship with another man who had set up a roadside stand to sell decorative concrete products, and soon the two started to sell their wares together.

Eventually, the elder Shamburger's furniture business evolved into what it is now, as customers occasionally returned chairs for repair. He also "discovered he could sell good chairs" after he secured the services of a cabinetmaker who first was hired to work on repairs, she said.

By the late 1940s, the elder Shamburger had bought the former hotel building and operated out of that building, she said.

She and her husband, Madison E. Shamburger III, were married in 1951, but he had been discouraged from going into the furniture business with his father and later became a consulting engineer.

For the next 20 years, she devoted her time to the responsibilities of family life, and her husband worked with his father only on holidays and occasionally in the summer.

A psychology and history major in college, Mrs. Shamburger was a full-time wife and mother in 1972 when the opportunity came along to become involved in the business.

"Bought Her Half"

By this time, her husband and his sister owned the business (the elder Shamburger had died by then), and her sister-in-law was not interested in being involved in the day-to-day operation, "so I bought her half out.

"My husband and I ran the shop, and, as we incorporated, he became president. I later became president, and he is now the secretary-treasurer."

The company's two principal craftsmen, however, are Edlee Underwood, who came to work for the elder Shamburger as a 17-year-old in 1930, and Walter I. Harris, son of the carpenter who helped reassemble Agecroft here in the late 1920s, who joined the business in 1939.

Both men still are with the company, Harris as the master cabinetmaker and Underwood as the finisher, and Mrs. Shamburger said the two men are the mainstays of the operation.

Harris "is so good that he can make a highboy without a pattern. He has a great eye for proportion. And Edlee knows everything there is to know about how to finish a piece of wood," she said.

Quickly Learned Routine

She acknowledges that she had no previous business or sales experience, must less any knowledge about buying fine woods for handmade furniture, but she quickly stepped into the routine that had been established over the years.

After watching, talking and listening to those who know furniture, and with the help of Harris and Underwood, she has become well-versed in the day-to-day operations of the business.

"It does not run itself, though. We have what amounts to an 18th century cabinet-maker's shop, in which we select all our own woods and follow through right until the piece is finished.

"That's not easy to carry off these days, and almost everything is done by hand in the same fashion and using many of the same kinds of tools and materials in use 200 years ago," she said.

The problems facing Shamburger's are not quite the same as those facing other small businesses, either.

The price of materials (Shamburger's uses mahogany, walnut, cherry and some Southern pine) has increased, and it is difficult for such a small operation to buy quality wood in small quantities, she pointed out. No purchasing network has been set up for such operations, for example.

"Although lately we seem to be in a position to benefit from the adverse economic conditions," she added. "Lumber dealers seem happy to provide us with whatever we want, because they have their own problems."

Then there is the personnel situation.

Both Harris, 67, and Underwood, 69, are continuing to work well beyond normal retirement age, "because we really hadn't made any provisions for them to retire, and we think of them as being too valuable to the operation," she said.

Two Others Full-time

Only two other employees among the six in the shop work full-time, and only one of them has stayed for any length of time -- Clint Edwards, who has worked for three years at Shamburger's. Two part-time cabinetmakers are employed as well, including a Henrico County firefighter who works his days off in the shop.

Whether other craftsmen or women can be found who want to devote their talents and energies for very little money to such an occupation remains to be seen, she said.

Nevertheless, the shop is a busy place, with a variety of custom furniture making and furniture restoration work always under way.

Mrs. Shamburger said about half the shop's business is derived from custom furniture making, one-fourth comes from furniture restoration work and the remainder comes from the sale of antiques. A Queen Anne-style corner cupboard, which takes Harris a week to 10 days to build and Underwood a week to finish, will sell for about $2,000.

Proud of Work

"My biggest joy is that this is a company in which a part of me goes with each piece that is made. It's thrilling to see a beautiful piece of furniture made with skill, integrity and honesty and know that I had a small part in the final product, even if it's only buying the wood."

However, she said she has some concerns about the business as well.

"I am concerned all the time about our future direction and whether we will be able to continue providing for our employees.

"I'm not optimistic about our ability to secure a new group of craftsmen to continue the business the way it ought to be continued. I don't know if younger people are willing or mature enough to make the sacrifices necessary to do this kind of work," she said.

'Quality of New People'

"I am optimistic only because of the quality of new people we have had come on and are with us now."

And there have been offers to buy the company, too.

"We've had offers to sell, but we've said no." she said. "Our gross receipts have increased each year, but this does not include the impact of inflation on our cost of doing business.

"I'd rather close the door and have Shamburger's be the Shamburger's that everyone remembers than have someone buy it and change it."