Money & Business: Serving the Valley for 50 years -- Portola Valley Hardware offers friendly, personal service to the community Money & Business: Serving the Valley for 50 years -- Portola Valley Hardware offers friendly, personal service to the community (February 23, 2005)

By Marjorie Mader

Almanac Staff Writer

A hardware store has been a staple in the Portola Valley community since the Jelich brothers built the first store in its ranch-style shopping center 50 years ago at the intersection of Alpine and Portola roads.

Over the years, the store's ownership has changed six times, and its name has changed, too. Originally known as Oscar's, the store became Simpsons of the Valley, Jim's Hardware, H &H Hardware, and, since the late 1970s, Portola Valley Hardware.

Mark Parris, the current owner, holds the record for being the proprietor of the hardware store for the longest time -- 20 years.

"I saw an ad in the Chronicle that the hardware was for sale, and I responded," says Mr. Parris, during an interview last week at the back of the store. "It took about eight months to work out a deal."

Mr. Parris knows the hardware business. He's the former owner of White Oaks Hardware on Laurel Street in San Carlos. His service-oriented philosophy, business sense and outgoing personality are a good match for Portola Valley Hardware, say his customers and helpers.

His "signature" construction-yellow ladder, parked outside the store's entrance, towers above the eaves of the one-story hardware store. Rototillers, wheelbarrows, log splitters and other equipment stand on display in the parking area. This outdoor assemblage leaves no doubt that this is a real hardware store.

Customers give and receive a friendly greeting when they step inside. "Hi Mark." "Good to see you, Tommy." "How's it going, Jerry?"

Two Australian shepherds, Sebastian and Cody, come to work most days with their master, Mr. Parris, and make themselves at home in the store.

Inside are racks, shelves, bins and aisles stocked with products, filling the store's 4,000 square feet of indoor space. There's another 1,000 square feet in back for storage of pipe, concrete and fencing.

Mr. Parris plans to renew his lease, which expires during this year.

Since the closure of the neighboring Portola Valley Pharmacy in 2001, Mr. Parris began stocking some of the products that the pharmacy carried, such as balloons, toys, greeting cards and stationery supplies.

"We're a customer-service based business," says Mr. Parris. "We don't compete with the big box stores like OSH and Home Depot, but we have a big selection of products that customers in the area need.

"We listen to what customers want and stock the items."
Early days

When it comes to talking about the store's early days, Mr. Parris defers to Tommy Simpson. She and her husband Robert, who retired from Crucible Steel Co., were the second owners of the hardware store from 1961 to 1969, and named it Simpsons of the Valley.

Ms. Simpson has worked at the store part time for all the owners except the original "Oscar" and Jim Hughes.

"I just love the area, the people and working in the store," says the friendly Ms. Simpson. She knows most of the customers by name.

In 1954, the Simpsons bought their historic home, built in 1915, on the former Fitzhugh Estate and located on Grove Court.

"When we moved here, there was nothing except orchard and fields," says Ms. Simpson.

There were about 500 people in the area; the Alpine and Portola roads triangle was "only a spot in the road," she says.

Ms. Simpson knew the hardware store's first owner, Oscar Epting, who sold the store to the Simpsons in 1961. Much to the Simpsons' surprise and amazement, Oscar had loaded all the merchandise from the store into a boat on top of a trailer and drove off in the sunset to British Columbia.

The Simpsons faced the job of restocking the hardware store and starting a new business.
Young Richard Merk

Working for the Simpsons was young Richard Merk, now a Portola Valley councilman. He worked there after school and during the summers from 1962 to 1966.

He began learning the hardware business earlier when he was an eighth-grader, working after school and during vacations at the Louie Sturz hardware on the Alameda de las Pulgas.

"I've worked for all the owners of the Portola Valley store, mostly part time, except Oscar and Jim (Hughes, the third owner)," says Mr. Merk, now a retired contractor, trained in traditional Japanese joinery.

"We really had a lot of fun," he says.

He remembers that the Simpsons sold Lee jeans in their store, and they hung a giant 15-foot pair of jeans from a scaffold on the roof in the front of the building.
Halls and Pynes

The fourth owners, Fred and Joanie Hall, named the store H&H Hardware in the early 1970s.

"They were the best employers," says Mr. Merk, noting that the store was a corporation and the employees actually accrued vacation time.

The Halls sold the store to Bob and Kathy Pyne and moved to Pine Grove in the Gold Country where they bought a piece of land, built a hardware store and had a lumber yard.

The Pynes are credited with changing the store's name to Portola Valley Hardware. In 1985, they moved to Sacramento and then Truckee, where they opened a pizza parlor.

A real fixture in the store is Jerry Rosenberg, who usually hangs out in the paint department. "He can match any color of paint. It's amazing," says Mr. Merk.
Times change

Over the years, local celebrities such as Tennessee Ernie Ford, Joan Baez, Shirley Temple Black and Bill Hewlett were customers. Dr. Russel V. Lee and his kids were regulars. Dr. Hewlett Lee continues to shop there.

The demographics and times have changed as the community has grown.

Many of the store's Saturday and Sunday customers are homeowners and there's not as many do-it-yourselfers, except for a small group, says Mr. Parris.

During the week, the business is mostly contractors and construction workers who are working on people's homes, additions and remodels.

"Mark has one of the best selections of nuts, bolts, screws, brackets and fasteners of any hardware on the Peninsula," says Mr. Merk. "You can go in and buy one little thing. You don't have to buy a dozen or a package."
INFORMATION

Portola Valley Hardware is open seven days a week in the Jelich shopping center, at the intersection of Alpine and Portola roads, Portola Valley. Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday; 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. For more information, call 851-0116.

And then the landslides came

Mark Parris, the owner of Portola Valley Hardware, and his wife Judy Parris bought "Grandma Pratt's home" -- built in 1954 by Mel Pratt's brother -- on upper Alpine Road, the very last home that's within the Portola Valley town boundaries.

They moved there the spring before the 1998 El Nino storm triggered a string of 33 landslides that wiped out more than a mile of Upper Alpine Road. The massive landslides cost the federal government close to $10 million to repair and closed Upper Alpine for two to three years.

On the day of the first landslide, Mr. Parris recalls driving down the road at 7 p.m. and it was fine, but at 9 p.m. when he drove back, there was this "huge landslide" about a quarter mile from his home.

He met Dean Babcock from the town's Public Works Committee, who was in his truck, slipping and sliding on the muddy road.

Somehow, they managed to get their vehicles turned around, and they put up road-closure signs.

"The next morning it was like a war zone," says Mr. Parris. "A couple of spots were like quicksand. Twenty trees came down in one section."

He turned back, got his chain saw and started clearing the trees and debris.

Now Mr. Parris always carries a chain saw in the back of his truck, just in case. His quick emergency work during El Nino gained him a spot on Portola Valley's Public Works Committee.

"My job is to make sure Alpine Road is open," he says.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.