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The Hall Tree owner Joan Williams with daughter Sara Williams (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Cynthia Barbour has been shopping at The Hall Tree for 20 years. (Photo by Jay Paul)
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Walter Lowery stops in a few times a month to see the new inventory. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Styles have changed since 1972, but the fashion formula at The Hall Tree remains the same: “I wanted to sell in-style clothes,” says Joan Williams, owner of the Carytown consignment mainstay. “I wasn’t interested in anything else myself.”
The store marks its 45th anniversary on Aug. 1. Williams notes The Hall Tree occupies its original location at 12 S. Thompson St., across a parking lot from Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market, and has a dedicated base of consigners and customers, many of whom she knows by name.
Williams’ fashion and business inspiration was her Aunt Fanny, a regular shopper at Garfinckel’s, an upscale department store in Washington, D.C. When Aunt Fanny cleaned closets for new styles, she would send boxes of dresses to her nieces, Williams and her sister. Williams liked receiving those beautiful clothes and realized that others might also appreciate a way to wear quality garments that at full price would be beyond reach.
In the late 1960s, when living in Cumberland, Maryland, Williams opened her first consignment clothing store, The Clothes Box. “I was experimenting in case we moved to a bigger city,” she says with a laugh. “As soon as [customers] walked in, they saw the room was pretty. It didn’t take long for people to know I wanted the good stuff.”
Williams moved with her family to Richmond in 1970. By 1972, she was ready for a new venture. Focusing on Carytown, she went door to door, visiting business owners and telling them of her plans. A merchant knew about the rental space available on Thompson Street and put her in touch with the owner. Williams proudly remembers that she received a $30,000 bank loan in her name alone to open her new shop, based on her business success in Maryland.
Coming up with the right name took some work. The Junior League of Richmond had been operating The Clothes Rack, a thrift store, for years. Seeking to avoid confusion, Williams decided to leave the Clothes Box moniker behind and instead name her store for the piece of furniture that many homes still used for hats, coats and other items.
“My husband asked me the night before we opened what I wanted to accomplish,” Williams says. “I said I wanted to meet everybody in Richmond.”
Williams’ daughter, Sara, worked in the store as a child and returned briefly during a gap in her own 30-year career in human resources. She made the transition from human resources to now assisting her mother with the business. Sara Williams says the store’s longevity is attributable to her mother’s discerning eye.
In the beginning, the store’s workers — referred to as “appraisers” because each employee evaluates clothing brought in for resale — knew all the best labels and what clothes sold for in department stores. Both Williams note that changes in the retail world — there are more brands and a greater variation in quality — are felt at The Hall Tree.
“We’re not seeing as much couture,” Sara Williams says. “Our goal is to price [clothing] so it sells at the first price … so it’s gone five minutes later.”
Joan and Sara Williams agree the relationship between consigners and Hall Tree staff is important. “It’s a matter of trust; we know what will sell and what won’t,” Sara Williams says, noting that staff will not hold items for customers or call to let someone know when a desired article of clothing has arrived.
The store’s process has changed little over the years. In-season consignments are accepted most weekdays. Each article is assessed for its value, based on the label, style and condition. Clothes must be no more than two to four years old, and shoes must be unworn. Purses, which are always popular, must be in pristine condition.
Appraisers evaluate each item, attach a colored price tag that corresponds with the week received, and move it to a rack. For two weeks, the item is sold at full price; then the price drops 30 percent for an additional two weeks. After a month, if still unsold, the item is marked down to 50 percent of the original price for a week, then to 75 percent off for a final week. At the end of six weeks,if still unsold, the item is donated to the Salvation Army, and the consigner can request a donation receipt for tax purposes.
Store Manager Maureen Olson began working with Joan Williams in 1976, when there were two Hall Tree locations: the original and one in Huguenot Village shopping center, which operated for only a few years. Olson worked at The Hall Tree until 1980, then left to open her own business, an art gallery. But after the gallery closed, she returned to The Hall Tree in the early 1990s and became manager in 2010. She says the store works so well because of Joan Williams’ ability to find solutions.
“Something would happen during the day, and she would go home and think about it and come back with a system,” Olson says. “She’s created all the ideas in here,” adding that Williams’ desire to protect shoppers resulted in one policy that might surprise people: Appraisers are not allowed to purchase any consigned item for four days after it has been received in the store.
“The public gets it first,” Olson says. “People think we get the best stuff, but no.”
Olson notes that Joan Williams dislikes having people wait to pay for purchases, so she will have as many as six or seven appraisers working at the same time, a marked difference from other retail venues. When not behind the desk, receiving consignments or waiting on customers, appraisers record sales on consigner cards and fulfill other necessary bookkeeping — by hand, as The Hall Tree’s accounts are kept without benefit of computer.
Sara Williams says she and her brother, David, who helps with the store’s books, considered computerizing some years ago, but were overwhelmed by the number of consigner records that would have to be entered into the system: more than 26,000. Joan Williams says the lack of computerization is good because record-keeping becomes another job in a rotation that appraisers use to keep themselves moving throughout the store. “Everybody knows how to do everything,” Joan Williams says. “We need an hour to sit down and rest.”
At 89, Joan Williams says she has no plans to retire from the store she’s run for more than half her life. “I’m constantly in a place that I like,” she says. “I’m so happy that I know it will go on, that there’s something for both my children to have that I set in motion.”
