KNAPP’S CLOSING HUGE LOSS FOR GRAVENHURST AND MUSKOKA AS TARIFFS HELP TIP THEM OVER EDGE
Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com
GRAVENHURST — Two people who can’t wait for summer are Greg and Colleen Knapp.
They’re done with winter, tariffs — and sadly — their business.
Knapp’s Gravenhurst Furniture and Appliances is closing and going out of business after 76 years.
“We don’t have a definite date,” Greg said Thursday. “We’re not going to be here this summer. I hope by the end of April it’s going to look pretty different in here.
“But we’ll still be in here for a while after. I own the building. I can stay here and do what I want. I’m not being kicked out.”
“At the end of the month,” added his wife hopefully.
And what a difference that will be for the couple who have mostly run the family-owned business since Al Knapp died suddenly “too young” in 1976 at age 55. And Greg was forced to drop out of university and BA studies at age 19 to come home and help his late mom, Gwen, run the business.
In 1988 Greg and Colleen took over and have been the friendly helpful faces behind the little office wedged between beds and appliances like his parents began just after the Second World War.
“We’ve evolved and changed and built our own goodwill,” Colleen said a few years ago when the main street mainstay celebrated its 60th year.
It’s also a big blow for Gravenhurst and surrounding Muskoka communities.
What family in town hasn’t slept in a Knapp’s bed, sat in one their La-Z-Boy chairs, washed and dried dishes and clothes in washers and dryers they bought at 171 Muskoka Road South? Stored frozen food in one of Knapp’s freezers.
And opened a family — or beer — fridge that was delivered to their door within an hour or mere days after buying and paying for it.
Then how about dozens and dozens of tenants who lived in the apartments above the store?
Greg’s been working in the family business since he was a kid.
“I’ve been doing this you might as well say for 55 years — if you count the time I went out with my dad carrying one end of a kitchen table up the Narrows Road. And the guy was sitting at his table in his under shirt and giving my dad whisky at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.”
But that’s been the kind of relationship the Knapps have had on Muskoka communities since Al opened here in 1957. (For years before Lloyd Cosby had and ran it and also operated his funeral parlour in back of the sprawling building.)
Al was lured to town in 1949 as a defenceman for the champion Gravenhurst Indians Int. hockey team and operated out of three locations before landing permanently and prominently in the downtown core.
“He was never sick, took pills or went to the hospital,” said his successor and successful son.
“Some of my customers are either retired, moved away or in the Lakeview or Mickle Memorial cemetery.
“I look at my customer list and say ‘I guess that’s the last thing I’ll sell them.
“Because they’ve either moved to be closer to kids or they’re in an old age or long-term care home for care ore passed away.
“But then someone will come in the store and say ‘My mom and dad bought from you.’”
Says Greg: “There’s so many new people who have moved to town. It’s unbelievable. I just see new people all the time. It’s like ‘who are you?’ And they say, oh, we’ve been here three years or five years and we’ve never needed anything.’”
As one of only two independent furniture stores left in Muskoka things have changed in the business — now especially with tariffs affecting the price of appliances, which in recent years have become a bigger part of their business. Though they still have some beds upstairs and exclusively sell La-Z-Boy chairs downstairs.
All of which they’ll need to get rid of fast in the coming weeks
“There’s none in Huntsville, Bracebridge or Orillia. And only Brown’s in Port Carling.
With hard work and shrewd business sense, the Knapps have not only served and supported customers all of Muskoka, but they’ve earned coveted contracts to supply all of the District of Muskoka housing units and provide for their emergency hardship cases. As well all the prison pods at the Beaver Creek Correctional Facility have Knapp’s appliances to cook on.
Contracts Knapp’s didn’t have 25 years ago.
“I’ve seen the good, the bad and ugly,” said Greg.
As well as the cottage crowd for whom back roads around the Muskoka Lakes are as familiar to Greg and his trusty deliverymen as are streets within blocks of their main street location that has been a stable Gravenhurst business anchor for decades.
“My goodness, we’ve got a relationship with all kinds of customers,” said Colleen Thursday afternoon between customers calling and lining up to make their final purchases.
“We’re going to miss the interaction.”
Year after year, summer after summer.
“We’ve haven’t had a summer vacation — not for 37 years,” laments Colleen, yet still with the same genuine smile of her husband that has helped them survive the vagaries of a small business in a small town. “We haven’t had more than two days off in a row — maybe three — since then.”
About the only holiday they can remember was taking their son, Jeff and his wife now wife Kirsten, to Myrtle Beach when they were in high school.
“And that was 36 years ago,” said Greg.
Greg’s 68 and Colleen will be 65 this summer.
So they’ve accumulated a lot of holiday time off.
“It’s like if we don’t do it (close and retire soon) there may not be many chances left,” he says.
They do have boat “down at the Tin Boathouses,” which they get out on a few times in July, August and September.
But in that long span of working, ordering, delivering and accounting they’ve also marked changes in life of their own along with “three generations” of customers, said Greg.
Which customers haven’t seen their little hand-written notes taped to the front door: “Closed for the birth of our son — or grandson?”
They’ve seen their share of businesses coming and going in the centre block of town, like at Anne’s Variety three doors north where owner Sang Park recently died after and he and wife Marie opened and similarly experienced their own life changes.
In between the old Sloan’s and Clipsham’s Hardware have changed ownership several times since Knapp’s opened and has remained a constant customer base.
Next doors the old Vincent’s store burned down, as did two businesses directly across the street. All three lots sit empty today.
“Of course, yeah it’s not the same,” said Greg. “That ship has sailed.”
And there’s haven’t been any tire kickers over the years offering to buy them out.
“Lots of people just want me to stay forever,” said Greg outside on the street while waving and chatting with passers-by.
“But you can’t go on forever. Everybody’s got to retire some time. Better than pass away. I’m looking forward to retiring on my own terms.”
Both owners are in good health, but increasingly helping her parents and brother and sister, the Thains, who used to live above the store.
“We’re just a bit overwhelmed. I’m not afraid to say it’s a bit of a challenge driving to appointments in the Barrie and Toronto.
“And things are changing. Technology is changing and the business is getting more demanding.”
And even when they’ve had customers in Minnett, Rosseau and Port Carling, “it’s a long way to go, to be honest with you,” says Greg. “With appliances you’ve got a finite amount of travel time and that makes it hard with not enough money to drive over hill and dale on every sale.”
He said while they’ve had lots of great employees for years, during the pandemic they had to slim down.
“And some of my best employees have retired. Some of them we just didn’t replace.
“We’re taking on more work ourselves. It’s not easy to get good staff who want to learn the business.”
A dozen years ago Greg had a burst aneurysm he now has under control and “about died.”
At 15 he also had a tumour on his spinal chord that left him paralysed and for many years following gave him an erect posture that had him looking left and right by only turning his shoulders.
“Otherwise I’m in pretty good shape.”
But now he’s more of a driver with the delivery guys than a labourer hauling furniture.
“I’ve lifted too many.”
Greg said he always felt lucky to be able to live and work and make a living where he grew up.
Their son Jeff, too, is a “successful” real estate agent in town and his wife is a teacher.
“He helps us and we’re so lucky they live in town.”
They’ve got their own lives now and can’t take over the business.
The same with Knapp’s siblings and their families, older brother Ed, older sister Valerie and younger sister Vivian. “They all live in Montreal or Toronto.”
So Greg stopped “ordering everything” from Whirlpool before this week’s tariffs hit — “the elephant in the room” — will jack up prices.
“I think we placed our last order 11 days ago.”
That’s because “quite a few people want to get it from us” before the store goes out of business “and they’ve bought here before.
“It’s all got to go. Appliances go every day. Yesterday, I think I sold four of these,” he said standing between a white washing machine and red fridge. “And these people in the store now are buying five.”
As for selling the business as a going-concern, he said “never say never.
“But “the business is not formally listed for sale.
“There are various options, but nobody’s made … they can’t make me an offer because it hasn’t gone on the market. Once it goes public, then we’ll see.”
He said “young people can’t really take if over because it requires so much capital. And your competitor is people (chains) that are trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
“It’s tough competition.”
Knapp’s own all the stock and doesn’t operate on a consignment basis.
“We own everything. That’s different from our competition.”
So for now Greg and Colleen are working even harder to liquidate their entire inventory in the coming days and weeks.
As well as taking care of the furniture and appliance business, family business and dreaming of maybe a Muskoka long weekend stay-cation following the Segwun and Wenonah II where the ships take them into that west Muskoka sunset.
Possibly through The Narrows where they can maybe sit down at a table and have that whisky on a day and time that’s past the yard arm.
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