Pho to by Krisca Husa

Closing A Tradition

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N

inety years ago, Selig
Knoppow started a wallpaper
and paint supply business,
selling mostly to local con-

tractors.
Over the years, the business grew
and passed down through three genera-
tions of Knoppows to include 13 stores
and 60 employees. It was a healthy fam-
ily business, providing the growing met-
ropolitan are with the latest in wallpa-
per designs and window treatments at
reasonable prices.
That is, until last month. In late
January, company president (and grand
nephew of Selig) Jerry Knoppow
announced the closing of Knoppow's
Industries, Inc.
"This is very sad for us all,"
Knoppow said. "This isn't the way we
wanted to close the books on
Knoppow's history but you have to
know when to let go."
The company closure followed
negotiations between the family
owned chain of stores and its lender,

2/27
1998

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JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR-
Special to The Jewish. News

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Knoppow's Wallcovering
and Decorating Centers
are closing 13 retail outlets
in metropolitan Detroit.

National Bank of Detroit (NBD).
Unable to come to an agreement •on
an extension of debt, the family opted
to close the stores and hand over the
inventory
"Business was not good," said
Wallace M. Handler, an attorney for the
Knoppow family. He said the bank debt
was "significant."
"They could not reach an agreement
with their secured lenders so they decid-
ed that a voluntary type of closure
would be best," Handler said.
One week after the closure, some of
the stores reopened under the direction
of Michigan DPC, a company hired by
NBD to liquidate the existing inventory

with store-wide sales. In the Berkley
store, scores of customers pored over
thousands of rolls of wallpaper and
tools as red and yellow signs proclaim-
ing the "Going Out of Business" sale
plastered the windows. Others who had
previously left deposits for orders were
given refunds by the bank.
NBD would not.comment on the
closing. "We, as a policy, do not talk
about our customer relationships," a
spokeswoman said.
Former Knoppow's employees who
spoke on condition of anonymity. said
they were given no notice of the clos-
ing. "We're just happy the liquidators
picked us up to work in the store while

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Knoppow's
stores are
closing.

we find other jobs," one former worker
said.
Sharon Knoppow, the company vice
president, said the workers had health
insurance almost until the end of
February. "We are doing our best to
help them find new work," she said.
Handler said the closing of the stores
was not a planned move by the family.
"It was a quick decision, done in a very
short period of time. It was not months
or weeks, but days."
Although the closing was rapid, the
building of the business took decades.
Selig Knoppow, a Russian immigrant,
began supplying painters and wallpaper
hangers with the tools of their trade in
1908 in Detroit. He soon brought his
brother, Simon, on board and Simon's
sons, Abe and Isaac, joined the business
in the 1920s.
Isaac Knoppow opened the first
independent store front in 1931 on
Livernois and hired his son, Jerry, to
sweep the floors for a dime an hour.
Jerry Knoppow continued to work with
his father and joined the family business
full time after finishing college.
As suburban sprawl began, the fami-