WAUPUN — Ver Hage’s Furniture Mart is celebrating its 50th birthday with a week-long sale at the beginning of the new year.
The sale will include “savings on every item in every department” in the store.
Ver Hage’s Furniture Mart was founded by brothers Alan and Wayne Ver Hage in 1974.
“I went to school for accounting and ended up buying another business which I sold in a year and a half, and then I started this one—and I have no idea why—but I just decided I wanted to sell furniture,” Alan Ver Hage said. “I just went down to Chicago to the furniture market and started buying up furniture because we had this newly constructed building that was empty.”
The building at 806 W Main St. is the same property Ver Hage’s opened in 50 years ago. When they first started selling furniture the building was only 4,800 sqft., and over the years the business made three additions to the property. Today the facility boasts a total of 20,000 sqft.
According to an article in the Waupun Leader News, Ver Hage’s held their official grand opening on August 15-17th, 1974. Attached to the property was a self-serve laundromat called Fabricare Center. Two pictures were included with the article.
“Because it’s fifty years—which is kind of surprising with the same person—I wanted to do something to celebrate that, so we were going to run a special on it just to celebrate the fifty years,” Ver Hage said. “Fifty years is a long time, and I’m getting a little older now.”
When they started the business Alan was only 23 years old, and still owns the business today at 73 years old.
The “50th Birthday Sale” will go from Tuesday, January 2nd to Saturday, January 6th. Ver Hage’s sells a wide variety of furniture for all purposes with brands including La-Z-Boy, Ashley Furniture, and Tempur-Pedic.
