Best Products

Best Products Company, Inc., or simply Best, was a chain of American catalog showroom retail stores founded by Sydney and Frances Lewis in 1957 and formerly headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

Sydney Lewis, a lawyer educated at Washington and Lee University and Harvard Business School, worked with his father managing an encyclopedia sales operation in Richmond.

Their Parham Road headquarters, built in 1981 and designed by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer, was notable for an American Institute of Architects award and the use of Art Deco eagles rescued from a New York building.

Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer subsequently designed the West Wing of the Virginia Museum, which was funded by the Lewises.

Customers were permitted to examine and experiment with these models, and if found to be desirable, they could be purchased by submitting orders to store personnel.

Saleable versions of the merchandise (usually boxed and/or in its original packaging) would then be retrieved from storage and delivered to a customer service area for subsequent purchase.

This was followed by the acquisition of Ashby's, a 9-store women's clothing chain, and the opening of four Best Jewelry stores in the Washington D.C. metro area.

Best vacated its corporate headquarters in Richmond in January 1998 and mailed out final checks to unsecured creditors the following December (paying 96 cents per dollar owed).

Terrarium facade of Hialeah, Florida , showroom. The location is now an Office Depot .