Fonti family buys Milwaukee-area Ashley stores

Wisconsin firm plans to reopen Pewaukee site

A Stevens Point-based furniture company said Tuesday it has purchased the Ashley HomeStore furniture businesses in Greenfield and Richfield and plans to reopen a former Ashley site in Pewaukee as well.

The deal brings Boston Inc., which is run by the Fonti family, into the Milwaukee area market for the first time. The Fonti family owns Furniture & ApplianceMart locations throughout the state as well as Ashley HomeStores in Madison, Appleton, Green Bay, Stevens Point and Marshfield. It has 11 Wisconsin retail furniture stores in all.

“With the addition of the Milwaukee market, we’ll have the largest delivery area of any furniture retailer in the state of Wisconsin,” Bill Fonti said in a statement. “We’ll dramatically increase our buying power, which will mean better deals from our manufacturer partners and, in turn, better pricing for our clients.”

Boston Inc. will take ownership of Ashley businesses at 4771 S. 27th St. in Greenfield and 2515 Cabela Way in Richfield at the end of August. The Pewaukee store, to be located in space vacated years ago by Ashley along W. Capitol Drive near Forest Grove Drive, probably will open by mid-October, said Jon Gadbois, spokesman for Boston Inc.

Gadbois said the company plans to do some remodeling and use part of the space at the Milwaukee-area Ashley locations for its Style By Design business.

“In that section of the store — it will basically be a separate entrance to the same store — we will have availability of other brands that would give us the flexibility to do custom-order furniture, Amish, just a wider selection, more variety of furniture.”

Ashley had a store in Brookfield for about five years at 16300 W. Blue Mound Road, but it closed at the end of 2016 to make way for Wisconsin’s first Floor & Decor store.

The Fonti family said to accommodate its growth in metro Milwaukee, the company will expand its distribution center in Stevens Point by 60,000 square feet. Between the distribution center and the new Milwaukee locations, the company said it expects to hire more than 100 employees.