It is the happiest -- make that the merriest -- place downtown.

Even in a recession, they're happy at Merry's Trash and Treasures.

"We've been blessed, we haven't seen a significant downturn or any of these horror stories you hear out there," said Brad Merry, a son of the owner.

Being spread out over four buildings on Broad Street, not all of them adjacent, keeps the father-sons team and their seven employees busy.

Bill Merry said his sons represent the fourth generation of furniture salesmen on the 1200 block of Broad Street. Bill's maternal grandfather ran Hughes Furniture across the street from 1915 to 1935. And then his father, Ira, ran State Furniture and eventually Merry's Trash and Treasures. The store has been under Bill's control for more than 40 years.

"You can sell what you like," Bill said. "I grew up with traditional style furniture. I love it."

His sons, Brad and Greg, grew up in the family furniture business as he did. They joined Trash and Treasures permanently while in their teens. Both are in their 40s.

"A lot of people know us," Bill said. "I'm not saying this from a prideful or bragging stand point, but hopefully, we're a household name in Augusta."

They've got 50,000 square feet of sales space, upper and lower floors of each of the buildings. The only way to get from building to building is either the front sidewalk or back walkway.

Since they can't be in all four buildings at once, they use friends to watch a building for customers. Communication is either through an intercom, which only works in three of the four buildings, or old-fashioned walkie talkies, Brad said.

The code for each place is its address: 1236, 1224, 1212 and 1204. Then there's the workshop in the back where employees refinish furniture.

"We consider ourselves advanced now. We have gotten phones with the push to talk," Brad said. "We've got one computer in all of this mayhem and it is hardly used."

That one computer has some of the bookkeeping on it, but is mainly a tool for e-mail -- and a place where the Merry children can play when they visit.

Up until last year, Bill did the bookkeeping in a ledger. A lot of it is memory, even now.

"Checks are still hand-written," Brad said. "No Internet, online bill paying. We do have an electronic credit card system. That was even a big step forward for us."

Greg handles the business logistics. Brad is in charge of the buying.

All three are salesmen.

Bill's desk in the rear of the original building, 1236 Broad St., gives him a great view of the front door, down the cramped aisle of tables and chairs.

His desk also holds a television. The only time it is on is Saturday, when the Georgia Bulldogs are playing.

"When Georgia football is on, customers are encouraged to look around, but they don't get much assistance. We'll get a little group back there," Brad said.

Customer service is key at every other time during the week.

"Customer service is the only edge I got on the box stores," Bill said. "We have few problems, but when we do have one, we solve it immediately."

The furniture store was built on repeat business, he said. "That's the best advertising in the world."

The Merrys are selling to their fourth generation of customers, Bill said.

Everyone is accustomed to working a six-day work week, although Brad tries to be off on Fridays and Greg off on Saturdays.

"No Sundays. We go to church on Sundays. That's important to us. We wouldn't be where we are if we weren't blessed by the Lord," Brad said.

Bill

Bill lived in a Catholic orphanage in Washington, Ga., before he was adopted by Ira and Emma Merry when he was 2 years old.

"It was right after World War II and there were a lot of military orphans," he said. "Long story short, it was a Catholic orphanage, they were Protestants, they finally wound up with me, they took me away, then they went to the court and got me back again."

Despite his then young age, he said, he has memories of that period because of the emotional roller coaster.

He essentially grew up in downtown Augusta. His fondest memories are of riding his bicycle in a circle up and down 12th and 13th streets.

His father owned State Furniture at 1232 Broad St., selling inexpensive furniture.

"We had a captive audience down here because there was no charge cards," Bill said. The store offered the credit, $1 down and payments of $1 a week.

Bill's father retired in 1960, but then in 1963, opened Merry's Trash and Treasures in Aiken. He agreed to a noncompete agreement but was able to talk his way into moving the store to Broad Street in 1965 because he was selling used items in a "cash and carry" format.

The store was aptly named. It sold trash and treasures. Greg said his grandfather would buy a houseload of items and sell it.

"He'd sell an iron and get 50 cent for it if he could," Greg said.

Bill said his father was ready to re-retire in 1968.

Bill was working for a regional jewelry store chain at the time. He had been transferred three times in 12 months and the company was ready to send him to Virginia, a fourth transfer. He worked through the Christmas holiday and then moved back to Augusta to take over Trash and Treasures and be closer to his family.

"I made the deal. I'll give you $200 a week for the rest of y'all's life. The best deal I ever made for him and me," Bill said.

He said he lived up to the weekly payments from Jan 2, 1969, until his mother died in 1982 and his father in 1993.

It was literally a mom and pop store from that moment, run by him and his wife, Bonnie.

Trash and Treasures was furniture, appliances and mattresses in a rented building. The roof leaked so bad during a rain storm that they spread plastic over the inventory to protect it.

Bill bought the building in 1970 for $35,000. The former owner financed the purchase for him: "$364 a month for 10 years," he said.

Now that he owned it, he could fix the roof.

Furniture restoration was an important part of the business. In the early days, it was done by hand. When it comes to refinishing a piece of furniture, stripping off the old paint or varnish is the worst part of the job, Bill said.

He used to put a pot underneath each leg to catch the paint remover.

"I did a 10-piece dining set in a week. That was a major accomplishment. Six chairs, china, buffet, table," Bill said. "Now we can refinish 80 to 100 pieces a week."

Refinishing is a more elaborate system now and doesn't require workers to take the finish all the way down to the wood.

Brad and Greg

Brad is actually William Bradford II. His mother, Bonnie, didn't want him to be known as Little Bill or Junior, so he's known as Brad.

He was born in the first year of Trash and Treasures; Greg a year later, in 1969.

They grew up in the National Hills area but attended Augusta Christian School on Baston Road. Their kids now attend the school. Brad is a school trustee.

Brad's earliest memory of the store is a pile of furniture blankets that became a play area for him and his brother.

"When we were 11 or 12, we didn't have the option of laying in bed (on Saturday), we went to work," Brad said.

"At that time, we were bringing in a lot of 1930s, 1940s mahogany furniture out of New York. He put us to work in the back refinishing."

Greg recalled the drill press with the buffing wheel on it.

"Everyone was into bright, shiny brass. I remember sitting back there for seven hours a day shining brass," he said.

Greg said the business was turning over enough furniture in sales that he could sit at the buffing wheel three days a week.

Brad graduated from Augusta State University -- then known as Augusta College -- in 1990 with a degree in chemistry. His intent was to use the degree to propel him into medical school and become a doctor.

"I literally got tired of school. Business is what I wanted to do anyway," he said.

He had already taken the tests to get into medical school when he changed his mind.

"I wanted to come to the business," Brad said. "Of course, he welcomed me with open arms."

He said he has no regrets about not becoming a doctor, and hasn't found much use for a chemistry degree in the furniture business.

"It was a good tool of discipline for me," he said.

Greg attended Augusta State for less than a year.

His brother's business degree came from the school of hard knocks, Brad said.

Greg's intent was to get a degree in sociology or criminal justice, but he chose to join his father in business full time instead.

"It was not really a hard decision to make to come in and work. Dad was fair. A lot of my friends thought we were given things," Greg said.

In 1994, he was taking home $205.72 a week as a married man with a house payment and a car payment.

"Not that we suffered, there was always an offer for help, but he taught us what the value of a dollar was. That is one of the greatest lessons," Greg said. "One thing, my dad has always been overly generous."

Merry's at the time was known for its Depression Era furniture, accumulated by a firm in New York City. Every six to eight weeks, Brad and an employee would drive up to New York to pick up a load.

"We would drive a little truck with a (24-foot) trailer behind it. We'd leave on a Sunday morning at 6:15, and drove for 15 hours," Brad recalled.

Brad would buy the furniture on Monday and Tuesday and tag team drive home to get back in Augusta by Wednesday morning.

"I'd leave the truck and trailer for them to unload and I went home and slept," Brad said. "I hated being away from my family."

The trips eventually stopped and the people in New York would send photos of the available furniture and Brad would be able to buy over the phone. A trucking company would deliver it.

There was only a small space heater to heat the building in the winter. The summers were grueling, the brothers recalled. There were no fans nor air conditioning in the building.

"We'd have a roll of paper towels here on the desk," Brad said. Customers would take a towel to wipe the sweat off as they looked around the store.

But big changes began July 2, 1987.

The fire

The fire started in the back corner of the store, caused by an electrical fault. The fire department called the Merry family to the scene because someone needed to open the wrought iron gate that protected the rear of the store, so they could get in to fight the fire.

"They couldn't cut through the gate to get in the building," Brad said. He was a freshman in college at the time.

He could see the flames from Calhoun Expressway.

"We sat down out front ... a fire has to breathe ... all that pressure built up and blew our windows out into the street," Brad said.

Bill said he was thankful that his neighbors only had some smoke damage because he'd seen old downtown buildings catch fire and take out a block.

Despite the fire, the family went to the beach the next day, part of their Fourth of July celebration.

"He needed the time away, we had no sense of reality," Greg said.

Some church friends showed up days later and boarded up the front of the store.

"It was three weeks before we realized the enormity of what was ahead of us," Brad said. "Dad was determined to build it back. We were insured, but limited."

The night before the fire, Brad had come back with a load of furniture. Bill sent him off for the rest of the summer to sell at antiques shows at shopping malls.

A fire wall had protected part of the store, allowing Greg to continue to sell there.

Bill and the rest of the employees went to work repairing the building.

Where there were wood floors over dirt, now there is concrete. Where there were lights with long pull strings every 30 feet, there are better lighting systems. Heat was installed, and ceiling fans.

"What I thought was the worst thing turned out to be a blessing," Bill said.

Since the fire, the business has acquired more floor space and buildings on the block. In November, they moved into the corner building at 1204 Broad St.

"The boys took it to the next level," Bill said. "We've got some property back on Greene Street, but they'll do that. I'm the old man. They run the show. This is my little cubby hole, it is a place to come to."

Bonnie died two years ago.

Bill said his life has slowed down. He has been attending Warren Baptist Church, but he and his wife were former Sunday school teachers at Westside Christian and Grace Baptist Church -- since 1972. He is a former deacon and elder at both of his previous churches.

"It is what I can do for Him in return," he said.

Hobbies for the Merry trio are spending time with friends and family -- and Georgia football.

Greg has three children. Brad has two.

"That's what I work for," Brad said.

It is too early to tell if there will be a fifth generation in furniture sales.

"They know where Daddy is. They know when they come down here, this is their store," Greg said. "If the business continues the way that it is, we would hope that they would continue it on."

Bill is a workaholic and doesn't hide the fact that he will always work.

"He'll retire when he's dead," Brad said.

"He's 65 and he gave us his 30-year exit plan" Greg said.

Bill looks over their shoulders but has turned over the reigns of Trash and Treasures to Greg and Brad.

"I've always told the boys to do what we're good at, that's wood furniture," Bill said.

Tastes in furniture have changed and the store has adapted. Some antiques don't work well as computer desks, for example.

Trash and Treasures is a direct importer of a lot of furniture now, though it continues to carry the traditional styles.

"Over the years, we've found our niche. It is not a fad ... I can't compete and don't want to compete with these box stores. If I could, I don't want to," Bill said.

"We've got a good, small, family operation."

Reach Tim Rausch at (706) 823-3352 or timothy.rausch@augustachronicle.com.