Lee’s Furniture, a fixture at 206 Broad St., will be going out of business as soon as the existing inventory in the store is sold out.

“It was just time to retire,” said Lee Hampton. “We’ve been at it 35 years, and I’ll be 68 in January, so it was just time to retire.”

Hampton will likely be found on the golf course a little more frequently, while his wife Sue Ellen Hampton said she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. “I’m going to find something to do. There’s got to be life after work I hope, I’ll find out soon,” she said.

The couple originally opened their furniture business in the Cotton Block at 115 Broad St. and then moved to the current location nine years later.

Sue Hampton said the couple made the decision to retire about five or six weeks ago.

The Hamptons own the buildings at 206 and 208 Broad St., valued at $310,240 by the local tax assessor’s office earlier this year. The Hamptons did not appeal the value of the buildings. Sue Hampton said that she and her husband felt like the figures, which went up 40 percent from a year ago, were fair.

“We haven’t gotten that far into it yet, but I’m sure that at some point we’ll sell the building,” she said. “I’m really not interested in leasing it,” Lee Hampton said.

At one time the furniture store used a portion of the second floor as part of their retail space, but for the most part it was storage space.

“There’s actually a third floor on the back of it, I call it a pop-up,” Lee Hampton said.

His wife said the upper level could easily be converted into residential space, a concept that has become increasingly popular and helped enhance the value of many Broad Street properties.

According to Floyd County tax records, the buildings include almost 6,800 square feet of retail space and a little more than 6,800 square feet of warehouse space.