Furniture store patriarch Walter E. Smithe Jr. dies at 86
Walter E. Smithe Jr., the patriarch of the family behind the namesake furniture store, has died at age 86, according to a family announcement Wednesday.
"He died peacefully with his beloved wife of 64 years, Florence Flynn Smithe, by his side," read the statement.
Smithe joined the family business in 1967 - then Smithe and Shanahan on the Northwest Side of Chicago, after the founders Walter E. Smithe Sr. and Bill Shanahan - after a stint in the Army and jobs with General Electric and IBM, according to the family.
Smithe Jr. is credited with pioneering the concept of custom-upholstered furniture in the Chicago area. He was running the business with his brothers Gary and Tomm, and they soon had a store in Park Ridge selling custom-order sofas and chairs. But Smithe's brothers didn't want to expand further, Smithe said in 2016, and they parted ways, with Smithe keeping the Park Ridge store.
Smithe said he knew the suburbs were where the growth was taking place. So in 1982 he and his son Walter III incorporated Walter E. Smithe Custom Furniture, formulating its mission, business plan and a soon-to-be-famous slogan, "You dream it, we build it!"
"We looked at the map of the Chicago area and realized it formed a crescent," Smithe told the Daily Herald in 2016. "So, we decided to open stores throughout that crescent, from north to south, so that all the stores were within a half-hour of each other and located in communities with name appeal. We opened a store in Schaumburg, followed by one in Arlington Heights, and on and on ..."
Now the company, called Walter E. Smithe Furniture & Design, is headquartered in Itasca, with nine locations all around the suburbs as well as in Lincoln Park in Chicago, another in Merrillville, Indiana, and a Naples, Florida, store soon to open.
Walter Smithe III and his brothers Mark and Tim helped make the furniture store a household name with clever commercials - a tradition that's continued with Smithe III's four daughters, Colleen Maureen, Meghan and Caitie, all also executives with the company.
The family's initial foray into the furniture business came almost 40 years earlier in 1945, when Smithe Sr. and his Douglas Aircraft co-worker Shanahan recognized that young soldiers coming home from World War II would soon be starting families, and home furnishings would be in demand.
"So they went into business together and opened Tone Appliance on West Belmont (Avenue) in the Schorsch Village neighborhood of Chicago," Smithe Jr. said in 2016. Soon after, Smithe and Shanahan put their own names on the store, which lasted into the 2000s.
Smithe Jr., referred to as "Walt" in the family statement, also earned a master's degree in anthropology at Loyola in 1980, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity and owned oceanfront land in Ireland.
Smithe Jr. is survived by his wife, seven children, 16 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren.
A wake will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 21, at Ryan-Parke funeral home in Park Ridge. A funeral mass the following day will begin at 2 p.m. at St. Paul of the Cross Church.