By Jennifer Hoegg
After more than 100 years in one spot, Kentville’s hardware store is headed down the road and picking up a partner.
Rockwell Home Hardware will shift down Main Street into the former Leon’s space by September where owners Colette Schaller-Beaton and Ken Beaton will also be subletting space to a new liquor store.
Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation posted to the provincial government’s procurement website on July 12 that the lease was awarded to Rockwell Limited June 28. Other bidders for the store included, Annex Investments Ltd ., Cornwallis Developments Limited, Kent Fields Estates & RCS Inc. and Parsons Investments Ltd.
Kentville's NSLC location is currently located in the Cornwallis Inn. No details are available at the is point about when the store will move.
Ready to grow
Co-owner Schaller-Beaton is excited about the big leap, which has been in the works since last October.
“We’re expanding from 8,000 to 15,000 or 16,000 square feet," she said. Additional space in the property will be sublet to the NSLC.
“It’s going to put a nice building in town,” Schaller-Beaton said.
Hours and product lines will expand, too. She said the new store would be open longer hours through the week, along with Saturday and Sunday and she hopes to add to the store’s 10 employees.
“We’re still planning to be giving the same down home service,” Schaller-Beaton said. “We pride ourselves on it.”
Schaller-Beaton and her husband bought the store in 2005, after having worked there for a number of years.
“There’s a lot of history with the building,” she said. The 1910 store’s history includes a ghost: staff believes founder Wiley Rockwell still walks the aisles.
She hopes he will move along with the store, but one thing won’t be moving – the name.
“I believe in my heart of hearts (the Rockwell name) belongs with the building,” she said. “We’re going to call ourselves Kings County Home Hardware.”
The new name suits the store’s clientele, Schaller-Beaton pointed out, who come from further afield than Kentville.
For more on this story, see the July 17 Kings County Advertiser.
