Potter's Lamps & Lighting closing its doors after 65 years in Muskegon Heights

At times, shopping at Potter’s was like shopping with your best friend, favorite cousin or confidante.

“I can’t tell you how many times customers have asked me: Which (lamp) do you like best? Which would you choose?” Schoonbeck said. “Well, it’s not my house, but I like this one.”

After 28 years on the job, Schoonbeck has helped people decorate three or four houses, easing them through the arduous task of finding just the right fit each time. Furniture stores and decorators from all over West Michigan have sent customers to Potter’s because of the quality of their lamps and their repair department: Mosher.

“I’ve never found a light I can’t fix,” Mosher said.

At the time he was working on a fluorescent light fixture that had seen better days, brought in by an elderly man who didn’t want a new one. He wanted this one fixed. Mosher went to work. Within an hour, the customer walked out happy, no cost for labor, only $6 invested in new bulb.

“To me, the customer service we’ve provided, that one-on-one service, set us apart,” Mosher said.

That’s what brought Ron and Louise Robidoux of Norton Shores into the store, unaware that the business was closing or a 25 percent-off sale was in progress at the time. They were in the market for a new kitchen light, but they’d left the paper with all the measurements on it at home. Schoonbeck helped them through: Did they have 8-foot ceilings at home? What size was the fixture they had now?

Before long, they made their decision — but not without a certain sense of sadness.

“I grew up in the Heights,” Ron Robidoux said, “so this (store) has been here my whole life.”

The store’s closing will leave a hole in the business landscape of Muskegon Heights, said Natasha Henderson, the city manager who is also heading up the city’s Downtown Development Authority.

“It’s very sad to hear they’re going out of business,” Henderson said. “When I heard about it, it was like an empty feeling. I see that building every morning when I go into work.”

In 1946, the store was located at 787 Apple, on the corner of Apple Avenue and Getty Street. In 1951, Potter and Howard moved the business to Peck Street in Muskegon Heights, where it has remained — until now.

“You don’t get that very many places,” Schoonbeck said.

After so many years working together, theirs is deeper than the usual employer-employee relationship. A small staff, they’ve been to weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations together. They’ve worked long hours, side-by-side, waiting on customers, doing whatever needed to be done.

They are more like a “family” than a staff closing up shop, Schoonbeck said.

“Phyllis said to me, ‘Will you be with me to the end?’ and I said hopefully we’ll be able to walk out the door, lock it and say goodbye,” Schoonbeck said.