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Clock and furniture maker with Triad presence to close

88.5 WFDD - Public Radio For The Piedmont | By Paul Garber
Published July 14, 2025 at 5:40 PM EDT
Image shows a clock
Courtesy Howard Miller Co.
An accent clock by Howard Miller Co.

A Michigan clock and furniture company with ties to the Triad is closing after almost a century in business.

The Howard Miller Co. has made grandfather clocks, wall clocks and furniture for 99 years.

It employs about 200 people. Among the Triad locations impacted by the closure is the Hekman Furniture Co. warehouse in Lexington. Howard Miller acquired Hekman in 1983.

Furniture sales are closely tied to the housing market, which has been slumping.

Buzz Miller, the grandson of the company’s founder and its CEO, also says Trump administration tariffs increased the cost of essential components not available in the U.S.

Howard Miller Company leaders were hoping to find a buyer, but haven’t been able to do so. The company plans to stay in business until next year as it sells off its inventory.
Paul Garber
Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.
See stories by Paul Garber