Bob Hoch’s Home Furnishings, at 301 Willow St., Lebanon, will close its doors after 64 years — after first selling the rest of the furniture on its floor and in its two 10,000-square-foot warehouses.

The store and one of the warehouses are also for sale.

Bob Hoch’s father opened the business in 1958. Hoch started working part-time at the business when he was 12. He then served in the U.S. Coast Guard for four years and, upon his return from the service, owned a bicycle shop for a few years.

Hoch starting working at the business again in 1988 and became its owner in 1995. He now has 53 years of experience under his belt.

“I’m just looking to retire, to spend more time with my family, and just to start to enjoy life a little bit,” Hoch explained about his decision to close the business.

Hoch’s decades of experience with the business had its fair share of highlights and hardships.

“I really appreciate everybody from the community,” Hoch said. “Lebanon County has really supported my family and myself in this business. And I truly appreciate that.”

“And I thank all my employees that had worked for me over the years. Right now, I have two wonderful employees that have been with me for a long time. That was a very hard decision for me … to close the business, just because of them,” Hoch said. “But, my heart’s not in it anymore. I just want to move on to a new chapter of my life. They both understood, and they’re still with me until I close.”

“We’ve been through a lot,” Hoch said. “We’ve been through two floods, which were total losses — one in ’72 and one in 2011 with Tropical Storm Lee. We’ve lost a warehouse to fire, which was a complete, total loss of warehouse. And we’ve always battled back … even during the pandemic when the supply chain was really difficult to deal with.”

Moving forward, the business is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.

“We have everything reduced. We have great prices on furniture. We still will offer delivery, or they can pick it up,” Hoch said.

“We are fulfilling all our previous orders that we’ve had before we decided to do the closure here,” Hoch said. “So, I can have all my customers rest assured that they all will receive their merchandise if they ordered anything at that time.”

The business does not have a close date set at this time. The close date will depend on how fast its merchandise sells as well as state and local government restrictions on how long the business must be open for a going out of business sale.

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Lexi Gonzalez has worked as a reporter with LebTown since 2020. She is a Lancaster native and became acquainted with Lebanon while she earned her bachelor's degree at Lebanon Valley College.