Local owners of Stell Furniture recently announced the longtime St. Charles Parish business will soon relocate to a new larger home on Highway 90 inside the St. Charles Plaza Shopping Center, site of the former Sears store.
Stell Furniture will move from its current location in Boutte inside the United Way of St. Charles Center on US-90 to its new location less than two miles away at 12715 US-90 in Luling, with plans to reopen its new location in early February. The new location will double the store’s footprint, from its current 4,000 square feet location to around 8,000 square feet of retail space at its new Luling store.
“We’re super excited about it – we’re going to be bringing in a whole new line of furniture, and we’ll be able to get back into offering rugs, lamps, home décor,” David Stell Jr, third generation owner of Stell Furniture, said. “Along with that we’re also going to have a full line of appliances there.”
Stell Furniture will also move its separate bedding business into its new Luling store, housing all of its product offerings under one roof. In preparation for the move, Stell Furniture plans to sell off all its existing inventory leading up to the business’ rebirth in Luling at its new location.
“We’ll be doing a move-in sale for the next two months to liquidate all of our current inventory,” Stell Jr. commented of the store’s plans with its current inventory.
The local furniture store suffered a tough blow in 2021 when Hurricane Ida demolished its main retail store location on Paul Maillard. Utilizing its already established satellite bedding store location on US-90, the family-run business quickly relocated its entire furniture business to its location in Boutte while it worked on rebuilding its original Paul Maillard location.
During the midst of their hurricane woes, the Stell family encountered major medical problems when David Stell Sr, David’s father and the longtime owner and manager of the business, was diagnosed with advanced stage throat cancer.
After selecting a general contractor to perform the rebuild work on the main furniture store, long construction delays, rebuild design issues and unexpected cost overruns eventually led Stell Furniture to pivot. Faced with having to start over this year with revised building plans, a new general contractor and much higher construction costs than originally anticipated, Stell made the decision to operate as a tenant in a larger preexisting location rather than continuing to rebuild on Paul Maillard.
Stell Furniture currently plans to sell its Paul Maillard location where its furniture warehouse – still intact and operational – is located; managers of the business are currently in talks with a prospective buyer.
“We intend to sell [the Paul Maillard location], which when we do, we lose our warehouse, so we will have to relocate our warehouse as well to this new location,” Stell Jr said, a move he mentioned his new landlord has already offered to assist with.
Stell Furniture first opened for business in the 1960s in Reserve, later relocating to Luling in 1990 where it has remained ever since. David Stell Jr. first entered the family business a few years ago, leaving his career at a local refinery to help manage the local furniture store. He would later cement his place as the third generation of the Stell family to own and operate the longtime St. Charles Parish furniture business.
“It’s all about overcoming adversity – what we’ve been through the last two years [would be] tough on any business,” Stell Jr. said. “The positive to it is that we’re going to end up in a great location – a much larger space – where we’ll be able to appeal to a wider range of customers walking in the door. I think, at the end of the day, it will also show that we’re here to stay.”
like fisher furniture