A Weir’s Village clock is seen outside of Weir’s Furniture, Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Dallas.
Elías Valverde II/Staff Photographer
Around three decades ago, Kim Winblood went to Weir’s Furniture after moving to Dallas and graduating from college. One of the pieces she picked was a sleigh bed. It’s still in her home today.
“That was the first time I ever had purchased from them,” Winblood said. “And of course, the experience was great. I love the store. And I mean, of course, being on Knox-Henderson — that was always cool.”
But that soon won’t be possible anymore. Weir’s has decided it’s time to close its stores. Last month, the company made the big announcement, ending retail operations after more than 75 years.
“I was sad to hear about it,” Winblood said. “It’s just been a place that you can always go and have great quality, great service, reliability.”
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The news of the closure caught some by surprise. The business, which had stores in Dallas and other parts of North Texas, has been a historical, even iconic player in the furniture industry for decades, dating back to a time when the city had fewer than 450,000 people.
Weir’s — while competing against rivals as a longtime family-owned business — faced financial headwinds as the furniture market itself came under pressure. A soft housing market, economic challenges and changes in buying habits are shaking up the industry. Now, Weir’s, the retailer that made Dallas’ Knox Street a destination for home furnishings shoppers, is holding a sale to unload its inventory.
“They were a phenomenal retailer,” said Howard Freed, who was the CEO of Freed’s Furniture, another North Texas retailer that closed more than a half decade ago. “They’ve been essential in the Dallas furniture market. I’m very sad to see them leaving.”
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Struggles in the industry aren’t hard to find. In the first quarter of this year, more than 15 retailers in the industry revealed closing plans, according to a report in Furniture Today. American Signature, an Ohio company that includes Value City Furniture, filed for bankruptcy late last year and later closed.
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‘Finished well’
In the statement announcing the closure, Weir’s leaders said they made the decision after “careful evaluation of its long-term financial position.” They added that the board determined the company could not continue operating sustainably.
The company wanted to ensure that “it finished well,” said Al Boulden, Weir’s chairman of the board, in an interview last month.
“By doing this — doing it now — we were able to develop a plan that would really take care of our employees,” Boulden said.
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That includes severance packages for employees, some with more than four decades of tenure.
PUBLISHED January 14, 1984 – knox street at travis – highland park pharmacy – weir’s furniture village
JOE LAIRD/Staff Photographer
Mark Moore, Weir family member and former CEO said the family has felt “a lot of emotion” during the March interview. “This is probably one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever had to make,” he said.
Weir’s began a closing sale on March 26.
“Since our closing announcement, sales have far exceeded our expectations,” Moore said in an email.
He added that the Knox-area store is set to close around Memorial Day weekend, but no definitive timelines have been set for the other stores.
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“It’s one of those iconic brands in its category,” said Robert Young, executive managing director at Weitzman, the real estate firm that provides services for the retail industry. “Their level of customer service, their level of expertise — they were part of what I’ll call the ‘above and beyond merchants.’”
It was part of the “fabric of the community,” said Young, who also has been a customer.
Weir’s, known for embracing biblical principles and the Golden Rule, had a strong reputation in the market.
“I always thought of them as an ethical company with good values that did the right thing,” said Brad Schweig, vice president of operations at Sunnyland Outdoor Living, a local provider of outdoor furniture. “I’ve always thought Weir’s is a very well-run operation.”
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A historic name
Weir’s got its start with J. Ray Weir, who never intended to enter the furniture business and follow his father and uncle Fred Weir, who ran a store on Elm Street. He was enjoying his work as a gas station owner in Fort Worth.
But he acceded to his father’s wishes by moving to Dallas and buying Mullins Furniture Store. He invested $8,000 and received another $8,000 from his father to bring his half- brother James Harold into the fold.
Weir’s Furniture opened on Knox Street on March 19, 1948.
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John Ray Weir, founder of Weir s Furniture, is standing in the original Weir’s store on Knox Street. It was a small rectangle-shaped store. That’s the original front door that remained in the same spot after several expansions of the store at 3219 Knox St. in Dallas. Weir founded the company in 1948. He died in March 2013 at the age of 102.
Weir’s Furniture
J. Ray Weir would teach himself the furniture business reading interior-decorating magazines while listening to customers, manufacturers and wholesalers. He learned quickly.
“We were open about two or three weeks, and this lady came in one morning,” he said in an interview in The News more than 20 years ago. “She got about 10 or 15 feet inside the store, and she said, ‘Do you have a credenza? ’”
“I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ She said, ‘What is that piece over there? ’ The way she asked that, I had a feeling it was a credenza, and I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s a credenza.’”
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The business grew slowly, for the Weir patriarch pledged from the beginning never to get greedy. J. Ray Weir had help from his wife, Bea Daniel, whom he married in 1930. As she took care of customers in the showroom as he often toiled in the background.
Money was reinvested into the store, which underwent periodic expansions.
In 1963, a key addition came with Weir’s Country Store, which was filled with unique treasures, old-fashioned candy and 25-cent popcorn. A restored post office was added in 1969.
Ray and Bea Weir retired in 1972, and son Dan became president. Its second store in Plano would open in 1999, and in 2003, Dan Weir handed the leadership over to Moore, his nephew. Southlake and Farmers Branch locales would subsequently launch.
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The Knox building, plagued by a chronically leaky roof, was torn down in 2019, and in 2022 Weir’s opened a new 28,000-square-foot, two-level store that faces Travis Street in the Knox area. It was part of the new $155 million Weir’s Plaza 12-story office tower.
Another leadership change came around the start of 2025. Dirk Smith, who had held the role of senior vice president, operations, became CEO, replacing Moore. Smith had joined the company in 2020.
Family owners of Dallas’ legacy retailer Weir’s Furniture are teaming up with developers to look at future uses for their prime Knox Street property in Dallas on Wednesday, June 14, 2017. (David Woo/The Dallas Morning News)
David Woo/Staff Photographer
John Brosius, a Dallas native and real estate agent, has purchased many items from Weir’s, including living room suites. He also has brought the furniture brand into his job.
“’We’ve always recommended Weir’s to people coming into town or clients looking for furniture for the new house they just bought,” Brosius said in an email.
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Housing challenges
Those kinds of recommendations are part of an important revenue stream for furniture stores. A new home means new decisions about furnishing and decorating. So, local folks will spring for a new sofa that better fits in the new living room — or snatch up a set of table and chairs for a new dining room.
“The buying and selling of homes historically has really impacted positively, or in times negatively, the furniture business,” Moore said. When people buy homes “they need new furniture because a lot of it won’t shift to the new home. And so that’s another very important part of this decision.”
The housing market continues to be under pressure, holding down demand for furniture. Just last month, existing home sales dropped from a year ago and on a monthly basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. A report by Zillow in 2025 said roughly 87% of homes in the Dallas metro saw their estimated value drop from the previous year.
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That’s all against a backdrop of interest rates much higher than in the 2010s and have made monthly mortgages more expensive.
Early this month, Basset Furniture Industries, which has stores across the country, reported a sales decline, and Rob Spilman, CEO of the company, said “demand continues to suffer from the stubbornly weak residential housing market” in a press release.
Another issue: challenges with COVID-19. Early on in the pandemic, as potential shoppers were stuck in their living rooms and home offices, they decided they wanted nicer furniture in their houses, said Boulden, Weir’s board chairman. Demand spiked and Weir’s benefited — but it wouldn’t last.
Nationally, employees at furniture and home furnishings retailers saw employee numbers near 500,000 in the years leading up to the pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Those numbers would fall to less than 300,000 in 2020 amid COVID-19. They would recover to more than 400,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis that same year a lot of that, but would decline — and dropped below 400,000 in 2025.
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Tariffs, an issue that has stirred costs and uncertainty in the past several months, haven’t been helpful, and the furniture market hasn’t escaped that either.
Ayla Weir, 3, relaxes in a Cobra Swivel Chair on the second floor show room as her family toured the inside the new Weir’s Furniture store on Travis Street and Knox Street in Dallas, on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
Ben Torres/Special Contributor
Amid the pressure, general economic headwinds have challenged the industry. For example, consumer sentiment sunk in the latest report by the University of Michigan consumer survey, and inflation concerns are getting louder as oil prices rise.
Sunnyland’s Schweig’s heard about some of those concerns when he went to the International Casual Furnishings Association conference in February. It’s a gathering of retailers, manufacturers and vendors from across the country in the industry.
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“Just talking to everybody — we’re all seeing the same struggles,” Schweig said. “There’s less traffic, and people are being more conservative as far as they’re spending.”
Competition in D-FW
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Historically, shoppers at Weir’s found mid- to high-end furniture. But the store founded over three-quarters of a century ago isn’t facing the same competition. The region has seen Nebraska Furniture Mart, Living Spaces and Rooms to Go add stores in the region.
Global furniture company Ikea has been adding more stores, most recently in Dallas and plans for another in Rockwall.
“A lot of major hard competitors came to town,” said Ray Allegrezza, editor emeritus at Furniture Today, noting Nebraska Furniture Mart, which arrived about a decade ago in The Colony.
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On a broad scale, family-run businesses become more challenging over generations, said Christopher Penney, associate professor of management at the University of North Texas. That’s not specific to any industry, Penney said, as they’re more difficult as the efforts of the founder are less pertinent as the company evolves.
Customers will miss Weir’s. Last year, Jerry Brown of Arlington wanted leather chairs for his master bedroom. He got them at the Knox Street area store for $1,000 apiece, much less than he had budgeted to spend. Brown has taken on remodeling projects over the years — and is sad to see the closure of the longtime retailer.
“It was a great furniture store for people that appreciated good furniture with good service,” Brown said.