A Hard Sell

Carol and Bill Edwards bought Chevy Chase Hardware in 2000. The couple is ready to retire and seeking new ownership of the one-stop neighborhood shop. Photo by Hattie Quik

Chevy Chase Hardware owners Bill and Carol Edwards know most of their customers on a first-name basis. Their two adult children, Avery Garner and Will Edwards – who also work in the store – do as well.

Their High Street shop is not the type of home improvement store where you have to hunt down an employee or call on an intercom for help. As Lexington’s last remaining locally owned hardware store, Chevy Chase Hardware – which opened in 1946 – harkens to a bygone era where customer service is priority No. 1.

This is a place where customers receive help with whatever they need. Will Edwards has been known to open the lids on stuck pickle jars for neighborhood ladies – on a regular basis. Recently, Garner was helping a customer tighten the screws on his glasses.

“The majority of our customers are regulars,” she said. “We know them, and they know us. That’s part of the fun.”

On at least two occasions, Bill Edwards and team have helped save lives. Once, a dad came in needing help cutting a zip tie that had become fastened around the neck of his small son. Another time, a frantic mom drove into the store’s parking lot, screaming for help to free her child from a seatbelt that had become wrapped around his neck.

The Edwardses are also able to regularly save the day with run-of-the-mill do-it-yourself dilemmas. After nearly 18 years of stocking the 20,000 items in his 4,400-square-foot store, Bill can tell customers the precise location of whatever they’re looking for, whether it’s fertilizer, spray paint, a piece of PVC piping or a specific size drill bit.

“Even my employees are sometimes amazed when people come in asking for something, and I’ll say, ‘Go four feet eight inches down aisle 17, and it’s on the second shelf,’” said Bill, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who grew up in Middlesboro, Kentucky.

The Edwardses have owned and operated Chevy Chase Hardware since October 2000, but they’ve been in the hardware business since September 1975, when they opened their first store, Lexington Hardware, on Richmond Road.

That’s almost 43 years of hardware sales “know-how” —a career that will leave big shoes to fill when the Edwardses look to sell Chevy Chase Hardware this year. Approaching 70, Bill’s ankles and feet are worn out, he said, after decades of 10-hour days on concrete floors. He’s open to working in the store part-time, though, once they find a new owner.

“I don’t see me just sitting around. I thoroughly enjoy waiting on people and being the smarty pants that knows everything,” Bill said jokingly, his trademark sense of humor coming through.

But after years of working six and sometimes seven days a week, the couple is ready for a little R&R. “I’ve been working since I was 13 years old,” said Carol, who had a career as an elementary school teacher before the couple opened their hardware business. “I’m tired.”

Both Carol and Bill hope a new buyer will be able to keep the store open.

“No one wants to see it close,” Bill said. “It would destroy the neighborhood if people had to leave and head to a big box store for every little item that we sell. We want it to stay.”

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Under the Edwards’ ownership, Chevy Chase Hardware has cut its prices by 20 percent and increased inventory by 30-40 percent, but what many customers value the most is the store’s flagship personal service. Photo by Hattie Quik

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‘This is where we were meant to be’

When Home Depot and Lowe’s both moved onto Richmond Road within six months of one another, the Edwardses lost $300,000 in sales at their original store, they said.

They could have declared bankruptcy. But, as Carol put it, “We just don’t do that.”

The couple dug in, and, in Bill’s words, “worked longer and harder to make it work. We weren’t going to quit.” They sold Lexington Hardware and bought Chevy Chase Hardware, closing one store on the same day the other opened. Bill took on a full-time job as a hardware salesman with wholesale distributor House Hassan Hardware, logging 16-hour days, while Carol ran the Chevy Chase store somewhat on her own for the first three years they owned it, until they’d pulled themselves out of debt.

Under the Edwardses’ management, Chevy Chase hardware cut prices by 20 percent and increased inventory by 30-40 percent, Bill said. Those moves have gained the shop a dedicated local clientele who often marvel at the small store’s ability to offer items at prices that match, or even beat, bigger competitors.

“We’ve had people come in with their receipts and compare our prices to other places,” Bill said. “One guy recently said if he’d bought his items with us, it would’ve been $14 cheaper.”

That’s because Bill’s a hawk about constantly checking competitors’ rates and tweaking his own margins. In the days before item prices were readily available on other stores’ websites, he’d roam the isles at big-box stores, calling Carol on his cell phone to report the going price of a tube of caulk or can of spackling. “Every time I stock a new item I check [competitors’ prices],” Bill said. “There are a few specific products where we can’t match them – because we just don’t sell enough of that inventory – but for the most part, we can.”

Thanks to its convenience, customer service and competitive pricing, Chevy Chase residents have fully embraced the Edwardses’ hardware store – so much so that Bill says they do close to twice the national average in sales for a shop its size.

The loyal customers in Chevy Chase – folks who walk the walk when it comes to buying local first – have made the Edwardses feel their location on East High Street is where they were meant to be doing business all along.

“I was surprised at the volume [of sales] that the store did when we came here,” Bill said. “When we got here, we felt like this is where we were meant to be. We shouldn’t have been anywhere else.”

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With inventory ranging from house paint to garden supplies, Chevy Chase Hardware is a popular and convenient stop for Chevy Chase neighbors, many of whom store employees know by name. Owners Bill and Carol Edwards hope that a new owner will be able to keep the store open when they retire. Photo by Hattie Quik

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