Jamestown, North Carolina, is home to the usual small town suspects, namely a charming, walkable downtown and plenty of good food. It’s also home to something less expected: the world’s largest furniture store. Marked by an 85-foot-tall highboy dresser, Furnitureland South’s 1.3 million square feet of showroom space sprawl across the campus’s 200 acres, and while they now offer online shopping and virtual design help, the true magic of the legacy retailer is best experienced in person.
“Most people, they may wrap their head around like a Home Depot or some big warehouse, and it’s just the very opposite of that,” says Jeffrey Harris, the store’s CEO, president, and co-owner. “Every single room that you walk into on campus, we try to make it look like you would want your home to look, so it’s beautifully decorated with rugs and lighting and accessories and artwork.”
Despite the sheer size of the enterprise, Furnitureland South is a family business through and through. “My father started the business in 1969 and, you know, it was one of these only-in-America type stories,” he says. “He didn’t really have any money and he had a two-year degree and was in the Navy. He was from this area, so he leveraged some relationships and took out a $10,000 loan and rented a tiny little warehouse and he was off to his start.”…