Photo by Frank Couch.
Birmingham Wholesale Furniture Co. staff, from left: Sharon Smith, Pat Baker, Herbie King, Linda Thomas, General Sales Manager Dan Cash, Martha Spengler, Nicole Lambert and owner Robert Ajam.
Birmingham Wholesale Furniture and Style Advertising are teaming up to bring a little extra flair to Second Avenue South.
Robert Ajam and his business partner, Simon Eid, commissioned the help of Monty Ballard at Style to refurbish the 65-year-old furniture store’s original sign.
Birmingham Wholesale’s original owners, the McLeods, hung the 64-foot-long sign outside the store when they opened in 1951. The sign, which spent the past eight years in storage and many before that accruing wear and tear while hung up, received a much-needed touch-up from Birmingham painter Kenny Smith.
Each of the four 16-foot-long metal panels was repainted to match its original style. The panels were then placed in a new frame and attached to the brick wall. The panels were so big and heavy, Ballard said they had to be put up with a forklift.
“It’s a big job,” he said. “But the owners wanted to keep the original antique look in accordance to the neighborhood, so this was the only way.”
When David McLeod opened Birmingham Wholesale 65 years ago, it was a private showroom where designers and decorators came to find high-end, one-of-a-kind furniture for their clients. Ballard said Birmingham’s top designers and decorators frequented the store for its quality products. After 20 years, the McLeods opened their doors to the public, but didn’t change the store’s name.
“It’s kind of an anomaly because you’d think it was inexpensive or cheap furniture, but it isn’t,” Ballard said. “It’s probably the best furniture in the state of Alabama, but still at wholesale prices.”
Ballard has seen Birmingham Wholesale Furniture grow into a true Birmingham original over the years. He worked with the McLeods as president of his own advertising company, Ballard Advertising. When Ajam and Eid bought the business in 2008, Ballard worked with them for three years until the two switched to an advertising agency in their home state of Louisiana. Despite the switch, Ajam and Ballard remained friends.
In April 2015, Ballard decided to merge his advertising agency with Style Advertising, where he is now vice president. About six months later, Ajam came to him with a proposition. He wanted to put up a new sign.
“We’ve had it stored for this long of a time,” Ajam said. “One day I kind of looked at it and said, ‘I think it would be really great to put that old sign up.’ It’s good that we didn’t throw it away.”
Ajam said the sign was originally put away for storage when he bought the store and its across-the-street warehouse in 2008 because of the renovations he had done to the building. He added black awnings and new paint around the building’s front entrance on 22nd Street, but only repainted the brick along the building’s Second Avenue South side, which is, coincidentally, the side customers see first when they put the store’s address into a GPS.
“You look at the building, and there is no indication,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Where is Birmingham Wholesale Furniture?’”
Originally, Ajam asked Ballard to help paint the Birmingham Wholesale Furniture name on the brick. Ballard enlisted painter Kenny Smith to work on the job, but a few days later Ajam called him back and said he had a better idea. He had remembered the old sign, dug it out of storage and now wanted it restored.
“We could have done any normal sign,” he said. “We could have done a neon sign for less than half the price, but that wasn’t the issue for us. This is really priceless. The downtown Birmingham historic flair is priceless, and you just can’t duplicate it.”
After all is said and done, the resurrection of the 64-foot-long, four-foot-tall, full-color horizontal sign will cost about $4,000 to $5,000.
“The money is definitely worth it to keep the integrity,” Ajam said.
Ajam said keeping the business’s integrity was an understanding from the moment he decided to pursue it. It continues to be one of his biggest concerns today.
He said he loves the glamor of old Birmingham and hopes to keep the feeling alive as a part of the downtown Birmingham landscape.
“We are trying to build a destination,” he said. “We want to be a part of the grand downtown because we’re right in the middle of it.”
Ballard said he thinks the project will draw attention not only from Birmingham Wholesale patrons and passersby, but also from other business owners.
“Through the next five years I think you’ll find a lot of their neighbors doing the same thing — refurbishing their buildings because it adds value,” he said. “Anytime you can take something that’s been around for 65 years, refurbish it, but keep the original look, you’re helping build this city even bigger and better.”
