Shoppers can still pick up deals at Circle Furniture, even though the store closed abruptly last year at 199 Alewife Brook Parkway, near the Concord Rotary in the Cambridge Highlands, before declaring bankruptcy.
Act fast, though: Everything from the 7,446-square-foot showroom is going to an online auction through the morning of March 10 – “living room sets, sofas, dining, bedrooms, dinettes, chandeliers, lamps, rugs, décor and fixtures,” as advertised on the website of auctioneer Paul E. Saperstein Co. of Holbrook.
A brass table lamp retailing for $1,049 takes bids starting at $100. A Saloom Kandace dining table worth $2,859? Bids start at $250. A leather Lanier sofa that would sell for $9,359 in the store? Bids start at $500.
Potential bidders can see the all items in person March 9 and bid the next day, with the first lot ending at 10 a.m. and subsequent lots closing every minute, Saperstein’s Paul Cotto said Sunday. People have options, he said: “Some will prebid, some prefer to wait until closing time.”
The catalog of available lots from the high-end furniture retailer went live as quickly as possible after court approval Friday, Cotto said.
Cambridge has the first of nine auctions to be run by Saperstein to clear out the inventory of the chain’s eight locations and warehouse in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The furniture company shut everything down Dec. 23 and laid off of 63 workers after almost 74 years in business, according to media reports. Circle was based in Acton and ran a warehouse there; the next nearest Circle is in Boston’s Seaport area, which gets the next auction (March 13).
“With a heavy heart, circumstance have gone against the business and we can no longer afford to continue operations, therefore all employees are being let go,” said a layoff email from the office of owner Robert Richard, according to media reports.
The retailer got its start in the early 1950s in Cambridge, according to Thomas Lester of the site Furniture Today. The founding Tubman family sold it to Richard in the early 2020s.
Furniture history
It’s another blow to Cambridge’s history as a furniture center. That dates back to the 1850s, when East Cambridge was home to a number of nationally prominent makers of custom furniture, according to the History Cambridge organization. It was the 1880s birthplace of the davenport, a common name for a comfortable sofa, by Albert Henry Davenport.
The Riverside neighborhood between Harvard and Central squares was once a furniture district, with around a dozen stores forming a “furniture store alley.” One of the last of the stores associated with the area, The Door Store furniture maker and seller, closed in 2024 but continued to fulfill orders, unadvertised, in the basement.
Losing Circle is similar to the closing of the Cort furniture store in Central Square. Carl Barron founded the leaser in 1938; it sold in 2001 to Cort, a Berkshire Hathaway company, but shut down in 2016. The site is now a Target.
Bankruptcy protection
Circle filed Jan. 30 for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, which is designed to pay off creditors as opposed to setting a business up to reopen freed of some debt. The company owed $13.7 million and had $2.2 million in assets at the moment federal judge Elizabeth D. Katz approved its filing in Springfield.
There was no telling how much the auctions would bring in, Cotto said.
“We wouldn’t even speculate,” Cotto said, noting that Saperstein has handled auctions for high-profile businesses such as Boston bars Cheers and The Pour House. “It’s all different. It could bring 75 cents on the dollar, some stuff could bring 10 cents on the dollar.”
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