Do you ever stay at a hotel and feel right at home? Now you can
actually purchase some of that furniture for as little as 200 bucks
a room.
Cooper Used Furniture on South Halsted is sort of a hotel furniture
graveyard. Here you can purchase goods from hotels in Chicago and
all around the US.
"As I start off saying, every 5 to 6 years a complete redo. Everything
out of room's carpets, pad; the entire rooms gutted. Our guys can
pull 35 rooms in 1 day," said Kurt Karchmer, Cooper used Furniture.
Kurt Karchmer runs this business that was started in the 1920s.
He buys whole rooms from hotels and then sells the goods to smaller
motel chains like Days Inn.
"Right off the bat we will bring in Travel Lodge, Days Inn, hotels
that aren't 4-star quality. We sell third of the entire hotel to
them," said Karchmer.
Whatever is leftover gets sold at his packed seven-story Chicago
warehouse. Furniture arrives by the truckload and there are some
screaming deals! You can buy a whole room for around 200 bucks.
And that includes everything you would find in one hotel room --
the bed, tables, chairs, pictures, lamps, right down to the always-present
Gideon's Bible!
" I think I end up sitting on; every hotel room has 3 pictures,
every hotel room has 3 lamps," said Karchmer.
But if you don't want the whole room, you can always just buy
a few items a la carte.
"It costs $25 bucks for a color TV. For example the Hilton I'm
sure they charge in the vicinity of $200 a night for a descent room.
I sell the entire room for the price you pay to rent the room for
one night. You can have the whole furniture -- the armoire, the
TV, everything," said Karchmer.
A little bit further south in Bridgeport, Lou found Fort Pitt
Furniture Liquidators. It's a similar business, but a tad more upscale.
Right now, they are sitting on some amazing furniture from the five-star
St. Regis hotel in New York City.
"Yea, this is one of the pieces from Saint Regis. This is a, if
you look inside your going to see you have space here for your television.
If I can get it to slide back there for me, there we go. On the
bottom there you will see where the hotel mini bar would have been.
And over there you would have seen where they would have had all
the snacks and stuff. All that can be modified to go into residential
uses. So you can use this to put your bigger television in. You
could put your VCR, your DVD, all your fun stuff. And you're good
to go all mahogany," said Scott Zawitz, Fort Pitt.
This 200,000 square foot warehouse is filled with everything from
oriental rugs to fax machines. They also have whole rooms for sale
for the price of one night stay at some of the hotels they came
from. This 40-year family-owned business is like a hidden gem to
interior designers.
"It's one of those stores. Where an Interior decorator will shop
here knows about it. Will buy a sofa that maybe you and I will look
at; Well you know that's kind bland and kind of ugly. They know
that the shell the core what's here. That a five star hotel has
bought is really expensive. They might have bought a $3000 sofa
frame. Their going to come in take the couch. There going to reupholster
it and there going to take it to their end client and there going
to sell that that same sofa that they bought from me $199 to a client
now for $3000," said Zawitz.
A marble topped bar and TV cabinet from the St Regis in NY is
brand new and originally $6,000 a piece but you can have it now
for $399!
For more information:
Cooper Furniture & Carpet CO Inc
1929 South Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60608
(312) 226-2299
Fort Pitt Furniture Liquidators
1400 West 37th Street
Chicago, IL 60609
(773) 247-3523
http://fortpittfurniture.com/
