Heights Hardware turns 100

Behind the front desk at Heights Hardware. From left: owners, father and son Tom and Andy (with dog Bella) Gathy and employee Jef Lowell. Photo by Lewis Pollis.
View Image Gallery

This year marks the 100th birthday of Heights Hardware in Coventry Village.

Heights Hardware was opened in 1911 by the Weiskopf family, co-owner Andy Gathy said, and ownership moved to his family when a distant cousin bought the store about 60 years ago. Gathy’s father, Tom, bought the business in 1979. “We like to think that Cleveland Heights grew up around the store,” Andy said.

Gathy, 36, has no plans for a celebration to mark the occasion. “We’re not looking to really wag our own tail,” he said. “We’re just happy to be around.” He added that they have no idea what the store’s actual birthdate is, and noted that, while a store like Big Fun (which celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this year) easily lends itself to a party, Heights Hardware does not.

Much of the store’s layout has changed since Tom Gathy, now 73, bought it. Most notably, he added 1,800 square feet of space to the back in the late 1990s, after Home Depot opened at Severance Town Center. Some of the original design remains intact, however, including the southern wall, which is covered with wooden shelves and drawers (the highest ones accessible via a sliding library ladder), all 100 years old.

Aside from service and “our old charm,” Andy Gathy said the business continues to be successful because they carry hard-to-find items, like repair parts for old houses. He said many customers are surprised that, after failing to find things they need elsewhere, they can be helped at Heights Hardware “in a minute or two.” Gathy does not think of his business as a specialty store, but said, “in our own little way, we are.”

Heights Hardware is “a real vintage place,” said Jef Lowell, an employee for five years. “I think it’s a marvelous store; I’m very proud to work here.”

Today, the store’s biggest competition is Home Depot. Before the big box opened, “it was always steadier business,” Andy Gathy said, "but business has been a little bit better recently." Gathy attributes part of the increased business to customers’ renewed preference for repairing old appliances (a need which Heights Hardware serves well) instead of buying new ones at a big-box store.

In addition, Andy Gathy said that the store has been gaining customers who had shopped at Seitz-Agin Hardware before it closed in June. The additional profits are bittersweet. “We are not happy when a small business goes out of business,” Tom Gathy said.

“We are the only [independent hardware store] left in Cleveland Heights,” Tom Gathy remarked. Just a few minutes before, a new customer—who said he used to shop at Seitz-Agin—had introduced himself to Andy Gathy and told him how important it was to him that he spend his money at a local independent business.

Heights Hardware will remain open “as long as the community still supports us,” Andy Gathy said, though he is not sure the store has another 100 years left in it. “We’ll see,” he said. “I don’t know.” 

Tom Gathy was more optimistic. “We’re going to stick around,” he said confidently.