Publication: CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL
Published: 03/03/2006
Page: 1C
Headline: HE DIDN'T NEED PUSH INTO POOL
Byline: BY MICHAEL JONES DAILY MAIL STAFF
Fenner "Buddy" Hart III has been around pool tables all his life. That's why it was only natural for him to carry on a family tradition and take over American Billiards Co. from his father five years ago.
Even while studying at West Virginia University, where he earned a sociology degree in 1994, Hart dreamed about running the family business.
He still vividly remembers when, as a little boy, he watched his dad put the finishing touches on each table.
His great-grandfather had a billiard shop in Clarksburg and his grandfather had one in Charleston.
"This is all I know," Hart said. "I've never worked for anybody else." But the business has changed since his father, Fenner Hart Jr., started building pool tables in the basement and selling them out of their Somerset Drive home.
The Harts rarely build pool tables today. Instead, they buy from major manufacturers that use large machines to produce better, more affordable tables.
"I miss me and dad on a hot summer day in the back of the shop building pool tables," Hart said. "But those days are over."
American Billiards Co. is located on Washington Street West near Stonewall Jackson Middle School. The Harts opened another store in Huntington seven years ago.
With more space, they can handle more inventory and offer a greater selection of bar room accessories.
A large assortment of pool tables stacked on top of each other towers above customers in the West Side store. The selection is even better upstairs, where Hart, 35, once lived.
The company is now geared toward bar room furniture. Pool tables are used more to add to a room's atmosphere than for actual games, Hart said.
"People are buying the whole room instead of just the pool tables," he said. "This is all new to us."
For about $15,000, customers can purchase an entire set that includes a bar with all the amenities, a poker table that can double as a dinner table, a tall bar stand with stools and, of course, the pool table itself.
One part of the business that remains constant is the demand for pool table repairs. The Harts handle jobs in Kentucky, Virginia, and across West Virginia.
Hart went to Morgantown last weekend to cover two tables in the club section of Mountaineer Field and met quarterback Pat White in the process.
They covered about 400 tables last year. Hart said the method hasn't changed at all since his father opened his business in 1969. It usually takes 40 minutes with a two-person team, but it can sometimes take up to two hours.
Naturally, the price for a pool table has increased over the years. The elder Hart, now 70, said the most expensive tables when he started sold for about $1,500. Now, top-end models fetch almost $9,000.
He's not as active as he was, but stays involved in daily operations at the Huntington store. He said he is pleased with the way his son has improved American Billiards Co.
"He's got it going right," he said. "He works hard at it, so there's no way it can fail. For him to turn out like he has, that's any father's dream."
The younger Hart has two sons - Tommy, 2, and Collin, 1.
Could they be the fifth generation of billiard entrepreneurs?
"I hope they would have better options when the time comes," their father said. "But it's here if they want it."
Publication: THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE
Published: 09/22/1993
Page: P1
Headline: AMERICAN BILLIARDS : BANKING ON TRICK SHOTS FOR THREE GENERATIONS
Byline: JEFF SEAGER
A game of pool, properly so-called, requires a table costing
considerably more than a couple of hundred dollars. It has to be at least seven feet long, otherwise so much maneuvering room is lost that the game becomes trivial. It has to be heavy enough so that if somebody bumps it the balls won't rearrange themselves. It has to have a slate bed because slate doesn't warp and is rigid enough not to act as a trampoline for the balls. Slate can take the punishment that children and drunks dish out. Byrne's Standard Book of Pool and Billiards (1977)
Petty thievery is a more profitable career than pool hustling,
which it resembles, requires far less talent and training, and is
equally devoid of promise. Byrne's Standard Book of Pool and
Billiards (1977)
JEFF SEAGER Metro Staff COVERUP: Ray Lanham, David Lawrence and Fenner Hart re-cover two commercial pool tables at the Derrick's Music warehouse on 6th Avenue in Charleston. Derrick's Music, one of the largest coin-operated vending machine dealers in the East, is a regular customer of American Billiards Supplies. If you've ever hovered over a green felt table for a game of eight-ball in a West Virginia tavern, it's likely that you've seen the handiwork of Fenner and Joyce Hart.
That's because the Harts _ who own American Billiards at 801 W. Washington St. in Charleston _ have been responsible for delivering and refurbishing a great many of the commercial and private tables in the state.
The family business is growing, too, with an upsurge in pool
playing and dart throwing _ their two mainstays _ and with son
"Buddy' due to graduate and return home next year from West
Virginia University.
Meanwhile, the Harts tend to the business they started in 1969 and stuck with through the lean years of the 1980s. Now the corner store displays a catchy new sign: "Hart's Darts.'
With the pending arrival of Fenner Hart III, better known as
Buddy, the family business will welcome its third generation.
Hart's father had a cabinet shop in Charleston where he built
counters, showcases and bars from about 1940 until 1957, while
representing Brunswick and later National _ a now-defunct billiards company based in Cincinnati. A brother was in the business for a while, and a cousin had worked with Hart's dad.
"I've never done anything but billiards,' said Hart. "That's
what I've done all my life.' The Harts have sold pool tables made by Gandy, National and Brunswick, and they build and sell custom tables of their own.
"We just do that in summertime 'cause we like to work with
wood,' Hart explained.
They also have built cue racks, and they sell an array of custom cue sticks ranging from the ordinary to the sublime, with precise inlaid designs that drive the cost up to several hundred dollars. For more than 20 years, Hart said, slate for pool tables has been imported from Genoa, Italy. A company in Pennsylvania once quarried slate for the industry, Hart said, but their specialized equipment wore out and the owners refused to replace it. Now the company sells slate for roofing and landscaping.
The initial investment in a table may be too steep for some
households, but a pool table just might be one of the world's great entertainment bargains over the long term. "Aside from cloth and cushions, there is nothing to wear out,' noted Robert Byrne in his definitive 1977 guide to the variants of pool and billiards. "Furthermore, a good table retains its resale value, while a table that was junk to begin with is destined only for the dump, and soon.'
The Harts never have sold the "junk' tables Byrne deplored,
with plywood substituted for slate. So even their most reasonable offerings are not exactly cheap.
"Our prices vary,' Hart said. "We've got the low end, which
we sell for $1,260 delivered. And then we've got the high end, and all in between that. What we call the high end is about $5,000.' The free delivery is statewide, and even into parts of Ohio and Kentucky.
"What we primarily do is go out on the road in pickup trucks
and re-cover people's pool tables. But now, our table sales in the last couple of years have picked up. We're still doing the same amount of re-covering work, but we're selling more tables, more cues. I believe that billiards right now is picking up bigger than ever.'
Pool leagues have generated renewed interest in games such as eight-ball and nine-ball, Hart said. "It seems like there's a pool table put on every corner, in all the taverns. People don't like to go to the taverns too much, so they buy a table for their home, for home entertainment.'
Darts is picking up too, in taverns and homes, for some of the same reasons and a few more. "In the past, we've always had what we call hard darts, where you use a bristle dartboard and a hard dart. So they've come out with electronic dartboards now in the taverns, where you use what we call soft-tip darts.'
The nylon-tipped darts are far safer around children, Joyce Hart
pointed out, which makes them a popular alternative to traditional steel-tipped darts.
"The soft-tip darts is what's picked up the sales in darts,'
Hart said. "So we're selling both.' Steel-tipped darts still sell
well, he said, but the sales of soft-tips have soared.
"They can take it home and not worry about their kid getting
hurt on it, because if they did get hit _ unless they get hit
in the eye _ the dart's not going to hurt them,' he said. "If
you have a hard-tipped dartboard, there has to be more supervision.'
Electronically scored soft-tip dartboards in taverns have led to the formation of local dart leagues, Hart said, and soft-tip dart
sales have risen partly because dedicated dart throwers want to
practice with the same darts at home.
