EJ Victor's decades-long chapter in Morganton comes to a close

After about 35 years of business in Morganton, severe damage from Hurricane Helene, and a drawn out battle over insurance claims, long-standing furniture manufacturer EJ Victor has decided to permanently stop operations.

The company, which was founded by John Victor Jokinen, Edward W. Phifer III, and Joseph B. Manderson in 1990, had a strong presence in the Morganton community for decades and operated solely out of Morganton, with a showroom in High Point.

When he joined the company in 2023 as CEO, Richard Oliver said, “It became very obvious of their commitment to the local community, to the people in the community.” The company was known for their high-end, luxury furniture, he said, noting that the quality of the products set the company among the best.

“We put love into it,” he said. “Obviously, we’ve got people who are craftsmen who provide a certain expertise, they make it by hand, they are very conscientious as they make the furniture,” Oliver said when describing what made the company’s products so desired.

However, Hurricane Helene flooded the plant and the company’s existing stock suffered significant damage. Oliver said he embarked on what he expected to be a difficult yet temporary effort to restart operations.

But impacts were much more threatening to the business than he imagined. Initially, he said the company submitted a claim to its insurance company, a claim that was partially denied in November. It wasn’t until June that the company was able to reach a resolution with their insurance company.

On May 14, a federal judge ruled in favor of EJ Victor, allowing the company to seek damages from Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co.

“By that time, you’re talking almost nine months since everything had happened and in that nine months we had lost most of our customers, most of our trade relationships,” Oliver said, noting that the company’s shareholders made the decision to liquidate the company.

Some employees, Oliver said, left on their own accord after the storm to seek work elsewhere. He said that the company continued to pay employees up until November when they realized they were running into issues with their insurance company. At that point, Oliver said the company had to let go of 122 employees. Now, there are about five to six employees left in leadership who will help him close out the company. He said they have just begun working through the process.

Oliver explained that reopening in Morganton would have required major repairs, along with efforts to reassemble the core team of craftsmen laid off last November. Restoring relationships in the marketplace would also be difficult.

“A lot of those relationships were not damaged, but people had to go elsewhere,” he said, “and the way our business works is it works on contracts and it works on projects and when people have to go somewhere else, it’s hard to regain those relationships.”

Oliver said the High Point showroom was up for sale even before the storm hit, since the company was planning to relocate to a better spot nearby. It’s still on the market.

“We have very, very heavy hearts. I know our board of directors, myself, and our leadership team, it was such a close family organization,” Oliver said. “It had a very unique culture, and it’s just very painful because yes, a business is not recovering, but more importantly … an extended family, the EJ Victor family will not be coming back together, and that’s what’s very painful.”