Gary Rohrer hoisted the cherrywood end table from the showroom floor and turned it upside down.
"There it is," he said to his wife Marjorie, pointing to the green Statton Furniture label imprinted underneath.
For 82 years that label has been synonymous with high-end, high-quality traditional furniture. But soon it may mean high-end collectors' items. Statton, the Hagerstown company that has been owned by the same family for four generations, is going out of business.
A company once as solid as the cherrywood its workers crafted into ornate furnishings, Statton has struggled to make sizable profits for years. Many of its retailers have turned to furniture made by overseas manufacturers that churn out traditional look-alikes at much lower prices.
The company recently held its last public sale, a two-day closeout at its headquarters. Dozens of avid furniture collectors converged on the company's two dusty, dimly lit warehouses and sifted through rows of finished and unfinished pieces affixed with price tags. Like the Rohrers, many of the collectors considered the Statton name as valuable as the pieces themselves.
"It's easy to buy unmarked furniture and say, 'We bought this at Statton,' " said Gary Rohrer, 61, a structural engineer from Boonsboro. "If you're paying for the Statton quality, you'd like to have the Statton name."
Closings, layoffs and other gloomy economic news are increasingly common in Maryland, where the unemployment rate is 5 percent, the highest in 12 years. Last week, the Legg Mason brokerage announced about 100 layoffs in the Baltimore area. Energy giant Constellation, whose financial troubles triggered the company's impending takeover, said it was laying off about 400 workers in this area and 800 overall.
T. Hunt Hardinge III, president of Statton Furniture and grandson of founders Philo and Helen Statton, said that in September the company decided to close its doors for good, after the summer's orders were down 50 percent from the previous year. Moreover, he says, many of Statton's retail clients have gone bankrupt - including two companies in North Carolina that owed the manufacturer almost $100,000 each.
During its heyday, about 15 years ago, Statton employed more than 200 workers. Now the number is down to about eight, including Hardinge. All that's left are supervisors; the last remaining production workers were laid off the day before Thanksgiving.
