Levin Furniture is returning to Peters
Robert Levin is chairman of Westmoreland County-based Levin Furniture.
Barbara S. Miller/Observer-Reporter
Levin Furniture will be returning to its previous location on Route 19 in Peters Township after Loves Furniture decided to close its Pennsylvania stores.
A distinguished centenarian is returning to Peters Township.
Levin Furniture & Mattress, a longtime staple along Washington Road, will be moving back into its former location. brothers, John and Matt Schultz, acquired the Levin stores out of bankruptcy.
Loves, which went into business only in March, hastily announced on Monday that it was leaving those five locations – all former Levin stores – to focus on its stores in Michigan, where the firm is based. Loves said in a news release that a local company would take over those stores, without identifying that firm.
Enter the original owner.
“This is an early Christmas gift for us, our employees and our customers,” said Robert Levin, chairman of the Westmoreland County-based furniture firm. “We’re thrilled to be back in the community, at a location that is convenient to customers.”
Three of those stores are in the Pittsburgh region: Peters, North Fayette Township and Mount Pleasant. The others are in Altoona and State College.
Levin closed those Loves locations on Monday and hopes to reopen the first of them in February.
Robert Levin sold his business to Art Van Furniture in November 2017. Art Van filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 9 and shuttered the Levin stores 11 days later, laying off 1,200 employees as the coronavirus pandemic bore down on Southwestern Pennsylvania. Loves then acquired the Levin stores through liquidation and reopened those locations in September.
Now they are back in the Levin family, reacquired by Robert Levin and his partners, John and Matt Schultz, co-chief executive officers.
The company again owns 24 locations, the number it had before the Art Van bankruptcy. It has seven furniture stores and six mattress stores in the Greater Pittsburgh market, including a mattress store in the Trinity Point shopping center in South Strabane Township, which was closed until July.
Overall, the company has 15 stores in Pennsylvania and nine in Ohio, mainly in the Cleveland area.
“We’re in Steelers and Browns country,” Robert Levin said, laughing.
One of the company’s primary goals, he said, “is to hire as many associates back as possible.” He also is planning a sale of a large number of floor samples left by Loves, perhaps in January.
Levin is asking regular customers, and potential new ones, to be patient for the rebrandings and reopenings. “We won’t be open immediately,” he said. “It will take a while to get the store accessorized.”
He is a third-generation owner of the company, which is based in South Huntingdon Township, where it also has a distribution center. The chain’s roots likewise are in Westmoreland. Robert’s grandparents, Sam and Jessie Levin, were immigrants who launched the company in Mount Pleasant in 1920, as a hardware/furniture store.
Furniture became the main focus there in the ’40s, when Sam’s son, Leonard, came on board. Leonard eventually became president, and under his leadership, the company expanded from that sole location into a growing chain in 1978.
Leonard died in 1989 and was succeeded by his son, Howard, who was president for only four years until his passing at age 40. Robert then took over in 1993.
Now he is back, and so is Levin Furniture & Mattress.
“We’re thrilled to be back in the community, pleased to be able to make it happen,” said Robert – who is likewise pleased to be celebrating a more joyous 100th corporate birthday than was once anticipated.