In the spring of 1888, when twenty-year-old Alester Garden Furman collected his
first insurance premium and set up a partnership in a crowded office in the old
Record Building, he launched a 120-year Greenville real estate tradition.
He had dropped out of the university named for his great-grandfather in order
to study at a business college and read law. With partner J. R. Mitchell, he started
an insurance agency and began to broker properties, and with his father, Charles
M. Furman, and cousin, Harry Haynsworth, to purchase land for development.
Mitchell & Furman did a brisk walk-in trade (they couldn’t yet afford a telephone)
until the Silver Panic of 1893 stalled business, closed mills, and ended the partnership.
Furman immediately started a new company with a college friend, W. J. Thackston.
Starting in 1895, he became expert in finding, assembling, and procuring options
for textile mill sites. In 1903, Furman went into business for himself. In addition
to developing Paris Mountain, he brokered land and buildings, expanded his insurance
business, and sold “gilt-edged” mill stocks and bonds.
In 1914, his son, Alester G. Furman, Jr., joined the business after graduating
from Furman University. After war with Germany was declared, the younger man,
now a partner, joined the army, returning to Greenville in the spring of 1919.
In the early 1920, the firm’s name changed to the Alester G. Furman Company, and
it became a charter member of the Greenville Board of Realtors.
During the difficult years of the Great Depression, Alester Furman, Jr., took
over the firm’s management. Starting in 1939, and then continuing after World
War II, the Company earned a wide regional reputation by working with textile
mills from Delaware to Mississippi to dismantle mill villages, eventually selling
more than 26,000 houses.
Alester G. Furman, III, joined the Company in 1946 and became chief executive
officer in 1961, when his father retired. By 1969, when its name changed to The
Furman Co., 59 employees worked in four related firms, a life insurance brokerage,
a general insurance agency, Furman Securities, and Furman Realty, headed by Junius
Garrison.
In the 1970s, Garrison became president, and the Company returned to its roots
in real estate, selling its securities business to Frost, Johnson & Read,
and its insurance business to Marsh-McLennan. In 1986, Garrison purchased all
outstanding stock in the company and appointed Steve Navarro, a young Californian,
as executive vice president.
The new leaders knew that acquisitions, mergers, and globalization were changing
the real estate industry. In-depth, accurate, and immediately retrievable information
was essential. As a result, they immediately began the Furman Space Report. Today
the Furman Report, available to clients both quarterly and annually, is the most
quoted source used by local industry.
When Garrison, then 75, died suddenly in April 2000, Navarro became chief executive
officer, and he and his experienced management team prepared for the future by
establishing five distinct but inter-related limited liability companies under
the corporate umbrella. The Furman Co., Insurance Agency, LLC provides personal,
business, and financial planning services for clients. The Furman Co., Development
LLC identifies land to fit corporate clients’ needs and constructs or rehabilitates
structures. Commercial Real Estate, a separate division, offers enhanced asset
management through The Furman Co., Facilities LLC and investment services as well
as retail, office, and industrial brokerage through the Furman Co. Commercial
LLC.
In 2000, in order to access national and international commercial research and
management services, the independent company affiliated with Grubb & Ellis,
the nation’s fifth largest commercial real estate brokerage company. New technology,
the ability to put its brokers in direct collaboration with over 2000 national
brokers, together with more sophisticated research and data collection, allowed
The Furman Co. to advise investors and major corporations about changing markets
and development opportunities. Their market report was folded into the Grubb &
Ellis national report, and at the same time the Company added annual seminars
for invited clients, real estate lawyers, bankers, and appraisers where experts
discussed survey results and trends in detail. In 2001 the Company sold its long-established
residential real estate business in order to concentrate its focus on commercial
real estate and development.
The Furman Co. today has evolved into a full service commercial real estate firm
with divisions that specialize in brokerage, asset and risk management, development,
insurance and investment advisory services. As Greenville digs the foundations,
raises the steel and recruits the companies that will create the city of tomorrow,
The Furman Co. will be there as it has been since 1888.
