Thursday, September 19, 2024
Stange’s of Waupaca will close by the end of the year as co-owners Mark Stange and Liz Stange are looking to retire.
Each of them has been selling furniture from the landmark store for a little over 40 years.
In the coming months they will sell out their inventory and then one of the most unique buildings downtown will be for sale. The cavernous yet cozy building is unique because it is composed of two original buildings plus three later additions. This long-running business all started with two guys having a smoke break.
Early years
Back in the day when school teachers could smoke cigarettes between classes, Mark’s father Robert Stange and fellow teacher Sam Taylor were having a cigarette break in the boiler room. They asked each other if they were not teachers what kind of work would they get into? Stange said he thought of opening a furniture store. Taylor had the same idea and a partnership began.
Later, they had the same conversation while playing bridge with their wives. Stange came home late and his wife asked where he’d been. He said he’d just signed contract to rent a building.
“For what?” asked his wife.
“For the furniture store,” Stange replied to his stunned wife.
Their first store location was near the former Weasel’s bar and grill. They later bought the feed-and-seed building on Union Street. Brothers Mark and John Stange would eventually take over the family business and one of their first jobs as youngsters was candling and grading eggs at the feed store when farmers brought their eggs to market.
During an interview with the Waupaca County Post, Mark Stange waved his hand across the showroom that is approximately in the center of the building. The current interior wall used to be an exterior brick wall.
“This used to be a grass alley. There was no pavement. The building across from the police department used to be a used car lot. It was just a field,” he said referring to the area that is now a cathedral-like arched entryway room that was designed to mirror the stone archway of the Waupaca Armory [now police department] across the street.
They purchased the building across the alleyway and joined the two buildings in 1976. In 1988, they added an upstairs to the growing structure.
“The other cool thing about that building [across the ally] was a barn was being torn down two blocks from here. Bob [Robert Stange] asked the guy what he was going to do with the barn wood. He said he was going to burn it. He asked if he could buy it. So he was into reclaiming long before reclaiming barn wood was cool,” said Liz Stange.
Those boards still hang inside today and there is also an entire porch inside the store and that was reclaimed from a local house getting torn down.
Closing out
“After 72 years of doing this, it’s a difficult business to sell,” said Mark Stange. He also noted that the passing of his brother three years ago “got the ball rolling.”
Local and out-of-state furniture interests looked to buying the store but those deals did not actualize. They plan to sell out the inventory in an ongoing sale that started last weekend and will last through December.
As for the future of the building, the possibilities for a new owner are vast.
“It could be a lot of things. That building has an upstairs, this building has an upstairs; that building has a downstairs, and that building has a downstairs and all of them have ground floor. So there are 14 different levels here. There’s potential for a lot of fun things,” said Mark Stange.
