Hollis Hardware will close at the end of September, ending 78 years in the same narrow building at 214 Water Street. Ken Hollis, the third of his family to run it, said the decision came down to arithmetic and age.
“I am 71,” he said Monday, sitting on an upturned bucket near the paint counter. “My daughter is a veterinarian in Portland and she is not coming back to sell me washers. That is the whole story. People want it to be a story about the big stores and it is really not.”
What it was
Ray Hollis opened the store in 1948 in a building that had been a feed dealer. His son Walter took it over in 1974 and added the lumber yard out back, which closed in 1998. Ken has run it since 1996.
The store kept a hand-written index card system for special orders until 2011. The key-cutting machine by the front register was bought used in 1962 and still works.
I can tell you what is wrong with a toilet from across the counter. That is not a skill anybody is hiring for.
Ken Hollis
The building
Hollis owns the building and says he is in no hurry to sell. He has had two inquiries, one from a restaurant group out of Ashford and one from a Millbrook resident he would not name. He said he would prefer it stay retail.
The closing sale starts August 4. The inventory is roughly 19,000 items, which Hollis says is about 18,000 more than he can count.
“Come get the odd stuff early,” he said. “The drawer of brass fittings nobody has asked for since 1988 — somebody is going to be very happy.”