Customers old and new lined up during the weekend waiting for the Tradeway Furniture store to open and its going-out-of-business sale to start. The El Cerrito store, which long has specialized in buying and selling orphaned stocks of high-end merchandise from manufacturers and shippers, is now handling its own liquidation.

The process isn't easy for the Conwill family, which has owned the business from its start and has had three generations of family members work there.

All through the weekend, people who have known owners Joe and Marsha Conwill over the decades stopped to renew acquaintances.

"It's a lot more than a business," said Marsha Conwill, who has been part of the operation for 44 years. "I don't think any of us thought it would end. We really didn't."

The 55,000-square-foot San Pablo Avenue warehouse in the middle of El Cerrito, a familiar sight to shoppers since 1936, has been purchased by the city Redevelopment Agency and will close for good early next year. But for now, it remains packed to the rafters with home furnishings.

Establishing what is now one of the city's oldest continuous businesses was not the plan 72 years ago when the late contractor Fred Conwill bought a former feed store in the still very rural town of El Cerrito.

"Fred bought this place in 1936 with the intention of reselling it," said Marsha Conwill, his daughter-in-law.

Instead, he began selling items salvaged from his building jobs and eventually began buying merchandise being auctioned by insurance underwriters in San Francisco and orphaned in railroad shipments.

The store in those days was different from what it would become. Back then, "the merchandise could be anything," Marsha Conwill said. "It could be bathtubs, it could be garbage cans, it could be food. We got machinery, we got batteries, diamonds, china, Hummel figures, all kinds of things."

One memorable purchase was the contents of India's exhibit from the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle.

An early foray into home furnishings came when World War II was on the horizon and the area's population soared as workers flocked to defense industry jobs.

"There were people sleeping in the hills in tents," Conwill said. "People wanted anything they could get, and Fred brought in mattresses to the store."

Joe Conwill was a baby when his father bought the store, and the family lived in the building in the early years. So he literally grew up in the business and developed his own skills at traveling the country to bid on merchandise left on a railroad siding or available after a store fire or natural disaster.

"Other than his time in the Army, it's what he's done his whole life," Marsha Conwill said.

The business eventually moved from salvage to focusing on furniture, reaching an agreement with furnituremaker Thomasville and then other manufacturers to buy goods considered damaged, off-color or misshipments.

The Conwills have done more than simply run a business. The store is known for sponsoring local events and supporting Little League teams as far away as Tara Hills. Contra Costa Civic Theatre in El Cerrito has long borrowed appropriate pieces from the warehouse for its stage sets.

"Schools are always coming to us asking for carpet or something else for their classroom," Conwill said.

"The biggest memories are the people," she said. "You become friends after so long. That's what we're going to miss.

In 1968, the Conwills bought one of the historic Pullman buildings in Richmond, where they sell rolls of carpet and other flooring. The family business will continue there, but it won't be quite the same.

"We have very mixed emotions," Conwill said. "There have been a lot of tears. But I think it's time. It's for the best."

Reach Chris Treadway at 510-262-2784 or ctreadway@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Originally published by Chris Treadway, West County Times.

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