SONOMA -- Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (NYSE: WSM), a $4 billion-a-year homeware retail chain, is opening a new store where it began in Sonoma nearly six decades ago.
[caption id="attachment_98615" align="alignleft" width="262"] Chuck Williams at the original Sonoma store in 1956 (credit: Williams-Sonoma)[/caption]
The retail space stands on the same site at 605 Broadway St. where founder Chuck Williams opened his first store back in 1956. The grand opening begins Oct. 4, which is also Mr. Williams' 99th birthday weekend.
Williams-Sonoma is known for its high-end kitchenwares, housewares, home furnishings, linens and specialty foods. The company currently operates 589 Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, West Elm and Rejuvenation stores in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, Australia and the United Kingdom. Sales last year were $4.3 billion.
It all started with a little hardware store in a small town.
Mr. Williams' father was a car mechanic, and during World War II Mr. Williams himself spent four years as an airplane mechanic for Lockheed International. After the war, he returned home to Los Angeles and one day met up with friends in Sonoma to play a little golf. Mr. Williams fell in love with the town and soon moved there, beginning a business as a building contractor. Nine years later he opened up a hardware store.
While his father was a mechanic, his mother was an excellent cook. And Mr. Williams inherited her passion as well. So, little by little, his store started carrying the French cookware he loved so much but had difficulty finding in America. Gradually, the hardware store turned into a cookware store, and Williams-Sonoma was born.
