The father-daughter team of John Martin and Kathy Beach has successfully built a half-century of furniture retailing in Clarksville.

Direct Furniture first opened near downtown in 1956. It’s now in St. Bethlehem.

“I was, at first, a manager of the store, which was originally down on Ninth Street,” Martin recalled. “R.C. Pressler and Morris Martin were the original owners.”

The address was 118 Ninth St., to be exact, next to J.B. Cook Auto Parts.

John Martin bought an interest in the furniture store in the late 1950s, and he’s been in it ever since.

Eventually, growth necessitated a move to the current location near Wilma Rudolph Boulevard and Old Trenton Road.

“I had a home sitting near where we are now. Where the store is now was my backyard,” Martin said.

“Back on Ninth Street, it got to where we just needed more space.

“I had a warehouse behind my house here for years, where I could unload the trucks from home.

“So then I just decided to build the retail building here,” he said.

The relocation was 20 years ago, and now, the newly remodeled front entrance to 15,000-square-foot Direct Furniture greets motorists from Old Trenton Road with modern styling.

Kathy Beach, the second of Martin’s three daughters, is today the owner of Direct Furniture, and is building a business around youthful, contemporary, interior design influences.

She came into the ownership about 12 years ago. In reality, she grew up around the business.

“I bought the store from my dad 12 years ago. He brought me up in the business. It’s been a family business all the way through. He’s still here, telling us what to do, and we still listen to him,” Beach said.

“With our store, we try to help each individual person who enters our store find well-priced furniture that offers a good look for their home. We constantly go into the marketplace to find the best look for the best price,” she said.

The large retail store is dominated by an open showroom from front to rear that offers varied concepts in room design.

And it’s by design, Beach said.

“Our whole room is one big showroom. We strive to keep it looking that way,” she said.

“We’ve always carried traditional furniture, and now, a lot of our customers are in their 30s, so for them, we carry a lot of streamlined, urban-lifestyle furniture pieces.”

The staff at Direct Furniture has combined experience of more than 100 years, Martin and Beach said.

“We all work hard, but we also have a lot of fun here,” Beach said. “With the way Clarksville’s growing right now, it’s a fun place to be.”

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