Gene Agress, co-founder of the nearly 40-year-old furniture shop, was recovering from heart surgery as Berkeley Mills collapsed. Then a longtime client made a big investment, and now he’s back in charge.
Berkeleyside — The custom furniture shop Berkeley Mills announced its closure in July after 37 years, citing “high costs and low margins” along with mounting debt, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in August. But after finding new investors, the shop is open for business again with co-founder Gene Agress back at the helm after stepping down as CEO in early 2025 due to health issues.
“We opened about five months ago, but we didn’t let anybody know because there was so much work we had to do to get open again,” said Agress.
Agress was able to hire back 11 of the 30 employees who were laid off in July, and is hoping to hire back a few more. Agress, 78, is also healthy again, after undergoing heart surgery, he said, and is now in the process of nursing his company back to health.
Berkeley Mills’ rebirth story begins the day the company was supposed to end for good. Agress was inside the company’s 32,000-square-foot shop, where Berkeley Mills was holding a sale of its showroom items, when a longtime client walked in and offered to make an investment in the company to keep it alive.
“He comes in, he sits down and he says, ‘I want you to make me a kitchen — two, in fact,’” said Agress. “And I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going out of business, how can I possibly make your kitchens?’ And he says, ‘What do you need to be back in business?’”
The client was joined by a friend in making the investment. Agress said he was not able to disclose the names of the investors, only saying that they both made fortunes in computers. He also did not disclose the amount of the investment, but said “it was only just enough.”
Bankruptcy documents show that in September, Agress bought all the personal property assets of Berkeley Mills, including machinery, vehicles, workshop gear, intellectual property, phone numbers and website domains for $450,000.
And while he is the owner on paper, Agress now simply refers to himself as the manager.
“Their deal with me was, ‘We don’t interfere at all because we did this so that you could run the company,’” said Agress about the new investors.
Agress renegotiated his lease after bankruptcy
Agress founded Berkeley Mills in 1988 with craftsman Luong Le and builder and designer Dave Kent, who was part of Abrams/Millikan & Kent, the team that developed Berkeley’s Fourth Street shopping district. They were soon joined by engineer and designer Scott Pew, who eventually became a partner. They initially set up shop on Fourth Street in the space currently occupied by Sur La Table before moving to Seventh Street. The company made a name for itself building high-end, hand-crafted furniture and cabinetry, which grace homes across the Bay Area. Kent retired about 12 years ago.
When Agress stepped down as CEO in early 2025, Pew and another employee ran the company, he said. Pew did not respond to a request for an interview for this story and Agress declined to share the name of the other employee.
During that time the company was “under great duress,” according to Agress and had around $2 million in backlog. Agress said he helped keep the company afloat through bank loans and by selling portions of the company to investors. But then an $800,000 job fell through, he said, and the company was forced to file for bankruptcy.
But because of the new investors, Agress was able to buy back Berkeley Mills in totality, he said. He was also able to renegotiate the Seventh Street lease, and said his rent went down significantly.
He also said that Berkeley Mills gave “every penny” made from July’s showroom sale and the sale of some of its machinery to the trustee who ran the bankruptcy to pay off creditors and suppliers.
“I don’t want people to think that we went out of business to get out of all of the debt,” he said. “I wanted to pay off as many people as possible, because it was not something I would have allowed to happen if I was running the place.”
The next chapter of Berkeley Mills is off to a good start, according to Agress, with offers of big jobs from old clients coming in.
“Now we’re operating again, making beautiful things again,” he said. “I’ll be hiring more people as we get more work, but we’re doing the same quality work. And I’m really happy because I get to do my design work again. I’ll be 79 in May and here I am.”
Berkeley Mills, 2830 7th St., Berkeley. Phone: 510-549-2854. Hours: Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Connect via Facebook.
