Complaint / Review
Art Van Furniture
Ripped off by a grossly unethicak, illegal and unscrupulous Michigan Business icon

Myself and many others have been ripped off by Art Van. At one time, I was under contract to build his new custom mansion in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan. Art Van and his grossly unethical attorney, Fred Keywell, fired me as their General Contractor, because I wanted to shut the project down for nonpayment.

I was owed over $450.000 in costs from change orders which were all approved by Art Van. The original contract was based on a 15,000 sq. Ft. Mansion, which later became a 26,000 sq. Ft. Mansion. The original budget, per the Architect, was 3.5M and did not include any finishes, that turned into 5.7M, and again without finishes.

After refusing to not to file a lien on the property, I was fired. My attorney was told that the reason for the firing was because I was caught embezzling funds among other things. Through their false allegations about me, my career and reputation has been ruined. I filed a lawsuit against them which wee for 14 counts. They filed a counter suit and with falsely alleged allegations.

After over 8 years in court which went all the way through the Michigan Supreme Court of which I had won and granted an award. It was found through the courts that all the allegations about me were to be untrue and unfounded. After the Supreme Courts ruling, he still refused to pay that was awarded to me. We were then forced to garnish his corporate checkbook to obtain our money.

Since then, I have been unable to find work because of the false allegations that they stated. Furthermore, the media would not write in their papers that I had won the case and that all which was said about me was untrue. This was because the media would expose him for what he was because if the tens of millions of dollars he spends advertising to sell his cheap furniture. This has insulated him from any bad press.

In an attempt to clear my name, I was forced to write a book, that is based on my experience in doing business with him. The website address for the first 11 Chapters of this biik is:

I further hope to find a publisher to publish this factual extremely fascinating story sp others will not also fall victim to his unscrupulous behavior. My life has been ruined from this experience.