100-Year Club

Home Channel News, Oct 25, 1999 by Brae Canlen

Over 250 retailers have survived the tumultuous 20th century

For as long as homeowners have wanted hardware, tools, lumber and seeds, retailers have been willing -- and to varying degrees, able -- to sell it to them. Through perseverance, acumen and maybe a bit of luck, a few of these dealers have lasted for a century or more.

But 261 of them? This tally, compiled by Chain Store Guide, a division of NHCN's parent company Lebhar-Friedman, represents the number of home improvement retailers that have been in business in North America since 1899. From Ayer, Maine, to Yuma, Colo., these dealers have withstood depressions, recessions, inflation and invading warehouse forces. While space does not permit recounting all the secrets of their success, several century-old retailers shared their individual histories with NHCN.

H.S. Farrell, Staten Island, N.Y. Founded in 1888

Bob Farrell credits his store's longevity to one of the building blocks of civilization: hard work, and lots of it. "We've lasted by being here from 7 a.m. to 6:15 at night, every night, except Sundays," said Farrell, who has worked at the same location for the last 50 years. Farrell, the company president, operates the 25,000-square-foot store with his brother, his son and his niece, who together represent the third and fourth generations of this family owned business.

The operation originally was a specialty millwork shop founded by Farrell's great uncle. In 1930, a year after the onset of the Great Depression, Farrell's dad kept the business afloat by adding lumber, building supplies, and hardware. When Farrell was 13 years old, his father died and his mother began running the store. She died at the age of 90, leaving the company in her sons' capable hands.

H.S. Farrell still operates a millwork shop that makes doors, windows, stairs and cabinets; it accounts for half of the company's annual revenue. The Farrells opened a second store on Staten Island in 1972. Both hardware stores are TruServ members.

For 15 years, Bob Farrell worked in the store by day and attended night school to earn a college degree. He and his brother serve on the boards of local charities and service organizations, which has engendered loyalty in the community. "If you've been any place for 111 years, people know you," Farrell said.

He admitted that he lost some sales when a Home Depot opened two miles away. But that was just another chapter in the Farrell Hardware history. "They hurt [business] the first year," said Farrell. "But then the customers came back."

Bangor Lumber, Nazareth, Pa. Founded in 1895

With their father's blessing, Mark and Matthew Hotchkiss are in the process of reinventing the family's 104-year-old business. "We're diversifying," said Mark, who is building a gas station, a full-service bank and a convenience store on the front of the property, which sits next to a highway. Plans already have been approved for the project, which will add 12,000 square feet to this Ace Hardware dealer's 8,000-square-foot retail space. Sometime next year, Bangor Lumber will become Bushkill Corners.

"Everything changed for us in the last 10 years," said Hotchkiss, who claims to have no title. ("I just work for my father," he explained.) Competition from three warehouse retailers and a downturn in the local economy forced them to close their second store in Bangor. "It's tough to compete with Home Depot," Hotchkiss said. "They'll do anything to get the sale, even if it means losing money. We can't live off our stockholders."

In the last four years, Bangor reduced its lumber inventory and beefed up its custom kitchen department. "It's the one area we can beat [Home Depot] on," Hotchkiss said. He also invented a folding sawhorse and reopened the second location as a small assembly plant for the product, called the Porta-Fold Workhorse.

Some of the retailer's older customers remember Hotchkiss, age 32, when he was a small boy, stocking the shelves. His great grandfather founded the store, and next summer, Hotchkiss said, his 10-year-old daughter will begin working there.

Hader Hardware, Cincinnati Founded in 1888

When Jim Hader went to work in his father's hardware store in 1946, he thought he'd have a lot of years to learn the business. But Henry Hader, Jim's father, died that same year, leaving his son to carry on the family enterprise.

Jim Hader is 76 years old now and semi-retired. When he's not in Florida, he spends an hour a day in the store, where he still keeps an office. In 1993 he sold the business, which had grown to 10 locations, to two long-time employees Gary Sullivan and Rick Suder. Hader Hardware is now owned by a group of investors headed by Gary Sullivan. The company has 17 locations: one in Bradford, Pa, and the others in Ohio and northern Kentucky.

"We're a good old-fashioned hardware store," said Sullivan, who serves as president. The first Cincinnati store, which sold farm implements and hardware to a rural population, has moved three times and now is located down the street from the original store. Jim Hader's grandfather, a roofer and a tinner, opened across the street from a spring-fed watering trough for horses, taking advantage of the wagon traffic that stopped to rest its animals.