Islip True Value closing will leave site without hardware store for first time since mid-1800s

The closing of a family business in Islip will end a historic run in a building that hasn’t been without a hardware store since the mid-1800s.

Married Islip residents Doug and Mindy Hayes will close Islip True Value Hardware at 445 Main St. by the end of February after owning it for 31 years, but various hardware stores have been in the building since the mid-19th century. One old ad traced its origins to the 1840s.

“We’re getting older and approaching our 70s. And it’s time to retire and move on,” said Doug Hayes, 66. Mindy Hayes, 68, declined to comment.

The oldest hardware retailer in the town, Islip True Value Hardware has faced more competition from Amazon and big-box stores, such as The Home Depot, Lowe’s and Walmart, but the Hayeses' store was still doing well — just not as well as in previous years, Doug Hayes said.

“We have a good customer base in this area. The people are very nice. They kept us going,” he said.

He and his wife couldn’t find a buyer for the enterprise after a year of searching, and their two adult children didn’t want to take over, he said.

“It’s a tough business. Retail is not easy anymore. It’s a lot of hours,” said Hayes, who said the business was open seven days a week until the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, when the store began closing on Sundays.

The couple sold the property in December, said Hayes, who declined to disclose the buyer's name. No sale has been recorded in the Suffolk County Clerk’s Office yet.

The store occupies about 4,000 square feet on the first floor, while three apartments are on the second floor. The store employs six part-time employees — two high school students and four retirees.

'I like supporting the locals'

On a rainy Thursday morning, longtime customers walked past the “everything must go” and “50% off” signs in the windows.

Several greeted Doug Hayes by name and told him how much they’d miss the store, him and his wife.

Building contractor Scott Cherveny, 67, started going there at age 5 with his father, the Fire Island resident said while picking up tin snips and string.

“The service is good. It’s got great stainless steel. … I like supporting the locals,” he said.

Retired industrial arts/technology teacher Jerry Holwell, 76, does home repairs for friends and family members in his spare time, so he visits the store regularly because it's very close to his home, he said.

“I like that their employees are knowledgeable," said Holwell, who added he avoids large chain stores.

“I have a philosophy that it’s more important to keep your local business going than it is to save a half a dollar at the big-box store,” Holwell said.

Paul Jensen, 79, began working part time at Islip True Value Hardware shortly after he retired in 2003 as a United Airlines mechanic at Kennedy Airport.

He’ll miss the family atmosphere, said the Bay Shore resident.

“It’s a little heartbreaking. It’s good for” the Hayeses, he said.

A little history

True Value stores are independently owned. Chicago-based True Value Co., founded in the mid-20th century, is a buying group with more than 4,000 affiliated stores in 40 countries.

The Islip hardware store in the mid-1800s was owned by Valentine Williams. In 1891, an employee smoking a cigarette while drawing kerosene from a tank at the store caused an explosion, according an 1891 article from The Star that the Islip Public Library provided to Newsday. The employee was critically injured, but Williams stopped the fire from spreading.

His son William E. Williams was running the business by the early 1900s.

William E. Williams’ daughter, Polly Williams, owned the business starting in the 1920s, Hayes said. By 1945, the store was known as Ellis Hardware.

Hayes said his uncle Wally Willrick Jr. bought Ellis Hardware in 1970 and sold it to Rick and Jeanne Sullivan, Hayes' stepdad and mother, in 1978. It became a True Value-affiliated store in the 1980s, Hayes said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.com@ToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.