Putnam: Bohnet lighting retail store goes dark after 113 years in the business

LANSING – For nearly as long as there has been electricity in Lansing homes, there has been Bohnet Electric Co.

The company was founded by William Bohnet in 1906 as residents turned from gas lighting to electricity. William’s brother Ernest added a retail outlet shortly after to provide residents the electrical fixtures they needed.

More than a century and four generations later, Ernest Bohnet’s lighting showroom is closing, victim of a changing retail world. The company will continue as a service business, offering repair work and restorations of vintage fixtures.

“It’s an evolution. It’s not like we’re giving up. We’re moving in a new direction,” said Steve Bohnet,the grandson of Ernest and president of the company. “Just because we’re closing this part of our business doesn’t mean everything is closing,”

Bohnet and Sheri Melville, the great-granddaughter of Ernest and the store's manager, began telling customers last week that they are closing the showroom, citing declining sales. They sell both vintage and new fixtures and lamps.

The process of closing is almost like a funeral — celebrating the company’s life even as they mourned the end of an era. The pair said they were prepared to console longtime customers and reassure them that they will be fine.

“Everybody is beyond sad,“ Melville said, adding that one customer began to cry.  “I knew when this saga was going to start I was going to have to comfort people and make them feel better.”

Melville’s father, Pat Bohnet, an electrician, died in 2017, at the age of 72. The two brothers, Pat and Steve, ran the business together prior to Pat’s death. Since his death, the store partnered with another company, Power Plus Electric.

That partnership will continue with the restoration work, Bohnet said.

Restoration is a thriving part of their business. They've restored fixtures at such well-known properties as Cranbrook House in Bloomfield Hills and Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit.

Closer to home, the company restored the pendulum fixtures at the historic John Dye Water Conditioning Plant owned by the Lansing Board of Water and Light and the city's Turner-Dodge House built in 1858.

Big name clients

The company counts Spartan basketball coach Tom Izzo and his wife, Lupe, among its customers as well as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's father, Dick Whitmer, the former head of Blue Cross Blue Shield in Michigan. Bohnet said his company cleaned the chandeliers in the governor's executive house during the Jennifer Granholm administration.

The 4,000-square foot building that has housed Bohnet Electric Co. since 1996 dates back to 1926 and was formerly a grocery store. The electric store moved six or seven times in its history. At one point, Bohnet said the company also sold appliances but got out of that business just before the rise of large discount appliance stores.

Bohnet said he began working at the store in high school and continued while attending Lansing Community College. It's been his career.

Melville remembers accompanying her dad to work on Saturdays as a young girl. She starting working there in eighth grade. She's now 54.

“I’ve always loved working with my family. I’ve done that my whole life,” she said.

Other family members in recent history working there were Sheri’s sister, Rena Dietz. The late Ronald Bohnet, Steve’s father, worked until he was 90 and his wife, Evelyn, worked into her 80s. Steve’s aunt, the late Elinor Bohnet Adams, was also a longtime employee.

“The best part of being in a family business is you get to spend time with your family. The worst part of being in a family business is you get to spend time with your family,” Bohnet said.

For example, he pronounces the family name with a silent 't' as the French would but other family members insisted it be pronounced with a hard 't' as the Germans would.

They had bumps but, “at the end of the day, everyone worked them out,’’ Bohnet said.

The retail business, however, has been a “roller coaster,” Bohnet said, busy one week and no customers the next.

Retail woes worsen

Because lighting fixtures aren’t exactly a basic necessity, the business struggled during the recession that started in 2008.

The death of Pat Bohnet in 2017 also was a blow. Online competition, big box stores and rising prices due to threatened tariffs were all nails in the retail coffin, Bohnet and Melville said.

“It’s more work all the time for less money,” Bohnet said. “It’s a cumulative effect that starts to add up.”

And, though Melville has two children, neither wanted to take over the lighting business.

The store, at 2918 N Grand River Ave., Lansing, is selling off its stock, starting at 20% off marked prices. Bohnet said one of the store’s five employees is moving away but the other four will remain in the repair and restoration business.

“We don’t look at this as a bad thing. One hundred, thirteen years was amazing. We look at is as 113 years of success,” Bohnet said.

Melville said she believes her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would be fine with the decision.

“They’re up there going ‘I can’t believe you lasted this long.’“ she said and laughed even as tears began to spill.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @judyputnam.

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