After almost 20 years of designing unique, premium home and office furniture, Wil Schock is closing his Schock's Furniture Crafters at 3385 Orcutt Road, about a block south of Waller Park in Santa Maria.

The last day of business is set for July 16, he said.

Schock, 50, said his business is a victim of the times.

“The economy has really given us a one-two punch,” he said. “The Internet has been hurting us for a long time, and the gas prices are just the nail in the coffin.”

Schock, a life-long designer, said thousands of customers have visited the studio counter at his showroom, where the walls are plastered with pictures of smiling, satisfied buyers proudly posing next to the special creations made just for them.

Some show small children who now bring their young ones in to shop for upscale bedroom and other furniture, he said.

Schock said he came to the Santa Maria Valley with $9,000 and a small handful of woodworking tools when he decided to set up shop right where the plant still sits today.

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With no other source of income or additional credit to fall back on, Schock, with a new wife and a baby son, chose Santa Maria for his new enterprise, although their relatives all lived in the Pacific Northwest.

“We had each other, so we felt we could make a go of it anyway,” he said.

Schock specialized in building custom and stock furniture entirely from raw materials largely engineered by him and a partner in Oregon as part of a planned national custom furniture franchise.

After a fire ended that partnership, Schock went out on his own and sold the first - and only - franchise, Furniture Crafters of Grants Pass, Ore., in 1987.

Soon after, Schock moved here to set up what would be the franchise model. But he decided he would just rather design upscale, one-of-a-kind furniture and abandoned the franchise idea.

Hundreds of selections were developed and offered for three bedroom suite lines as well as home theater pieces, dining pieces and a full complement of office furniture.

“Even after 25 years of designing furniture every day, I still love this job,” Schock said. “I've been artistic all my life, into music, restoring antique cars and motorcycles.

“But designing allowed me to be spontaneous and original every single day. If I could, I would design for the rest of my life.”

Although repeat customers are still coming through the doors, Shock has chosen to close the business.

“It's the Internet, without a doubt,” he said. “In order to operate a brick-and-mortar retail business, you have to have inventory, display overhead and many dozens if not hundreds of other ongoing costs that aren't necessarily associated with a virtual store online. ...

“And regardless of how wonderful the quality is or how great the warranty is, anyone is going to ultimately choose the one that costs half as much if it appears to the untrained eye to be basically the same.”

Schock said he's considering going back to school to study business law, “a profession isolated from the globalization that seems to be eliminating so many American jobs these days.”

As for all the pictures on the studio walls: “We would like to offer to our many thousands of customers over the past two decades the opportunity to come down now and take your picture down off the Wall of Fame so you can have and keep your own piece of history,” he said.

For more information, call Schock's at 937-7271.

July 9, 2008