The Sherlock family of Homewood is celebrating the 50th anniversary of their business, Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile.
The flooring store in Orland Park is marking the five decades with a sale on select carpet, tile, hardwood and luxury vinyl brands.
Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile originally was known as Medallion Carpets when it opened at 183rd Street and Kedzie Avenue in Homewood in 1975. It moved to its current location at 7110 West 157th St. in Orland Park in 1980. Medallion Carpets was renamed Sherlock’s Carpet Warehouse in the 1990s and went through another name change to Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile in 2001.
For its 50th anniversary, Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile has a sale on tiling products from MSI Tiling for the rest of the year. The sale also includes reduced prices on hardwood and luxury vinyl products from Godfrey Hirst, Karastan, and Karastan LuxeCraft until Thanksgiving, as well as carpet, hardwood and tiling products from COREtec Floors and Mohawk SmartStrand while supplies last.
Joe Sherlock founded the company. He gave it to his son, Homewood resident Marty Sherlock, in 1993. Marty said he’d been helping with floor installations for the family business since he was 15 years old, five years after the store first opened.
“Unfortunately, my father got sick in 1993. So, it was either I grab the bull by the horns or the bull was going to wreck the China shop,” Marty said. “I found myself in a predicament, but somehow figured it out. And here we are, 33 years later.”
Marty was a sales advisor with no experience in managing the family business, but said he sought the advice of mentors to help him take on the responsibility.
Marty’s daughter, Marie Sherlock, graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2016 and from Loyola University in Chicago with a business degree in 2020. She became Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile’s marketing director in 2020.
“Who doesn’t want to buy from Sherlock Holmes?” Marie said with a laugh, explaining why the business was renamed Sherlock’s Carpet Warehouse.
The business was renamed Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile to highlight that they didn’t only sell and install carpet but also tile flooring, management said.
Between 2000 and 2019, carpet’s share of flooring sales dropped from about 60% to about a third, according to Catalina Research, but this cultural shift began in the 1990s.
“We might be due for another rebrand coming soon because a lot of people refer to us as ‘Sherlock’s Carpet.’ They forget ‘and tile,’” Marie said. “We get some phone calls sometimes saying, ‘Hey, do you guys do hardwood?’ They think ‘tile.’ They’re not necessarily thinking hard surface, but we are very full service.”
Marty said Sherlock’s Carpet & Tile serves customers throughout Chicagoland and in four states – Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Their clients are both commercial and residential, but about 80% of sales are residential, he said.
