Nuts and bolts of survival

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - For 100 years they've come to this emporium for tools, pipe fittings, and miniature screws that won't rust as soon as the salt air hits them.

As they cross creaky wooden floors that have been flooded more times than anyone remembers, customers inhale the perfume of nails, grass seed, and burlap and present lists of items needed to build, repair, paint, and clean their homes.

And even though long, narrow Wallace Hardware's merchandise is packed tighter than the Jersey Shore on the Fourth of July, members of the family that has operated the place since 1909 can find what their clients are after.

"We never throw anything out," joked Dawn Wallace-Wentz as she poked through a stash of 1920s-era keyhole escutcheons.

"The original box for these disintegrated a long time ago, but we still have the metal plates that have probably been in the store for 80 years or so. Someone came in the other day looking for one of these, and luckily we had it. I think I charged them a quarter," said Wallace-Wentz, whose great-grandfather Luther Wallace founded the store on Asbury Avenue.

Chalk it up as a small victory in the battle between tiny downtown hardware retailers and Goliaths such as Home Depot and Lowe's.

In May, Wallace's will open a new 4,000-square-foot main store on West Avenue, directly behind its current location. The family converted a 50-year-old Wallace's warehouse, formerly known as the "annex," and kept the design low-tech.

"We like to keep it simple," said Wallace-Wentz's brother Mike Wallace.

The family installed wooden floors and left the beams and steel girders exposed to retain the rustic feel and convey the place's history, Wallace-Wentz said.

The warehouse was built near the foundation of an old barn, probably one of Ocean City's original buildings, torn down in the 1940s. A sliding door from the barn - among the things that were never thrown out - is a back way into the current store.

"The new store will become our actual main store, where we'll have the plumbing, electrical supplies, paint - all that sort of stuff. The old store will be where we sell the beach equipment, the grills, the trains, the household items, that sort of thing," Wallace-Wentz said.

One of only a few hardware stores left in this Cape May County barrier-island resort, Wallace's is among 30,000 independent hardware outlets nationwide, said Jesse Carleton of the North American Retail Hardware Association.

"The opposite of what you might expect in this economy is happening for the small, independent hardware retailer," Carleton said.

"There may be some hitting a few speed bumps with the way things are right now, but for the most part customers are discovering what valuable places these stores are," he said. "That's helping them to compete against the big boys, and in some cases even thrive."

Wallace's customers seem to agree.

"The strange thing is no matter what I want, they have it," said Fred Miller, a local historian who has shopped there for decades. "And they're such a nice family."

The Wallaces pride themselves on their inventory.

"When the store started out, hardware stores were really like general stores that sold just about everything for the home besides groceries," said matriarch Gladys Wallace, 80.

That's why in a modern hardware store you'll find cleaning supplies, coffee makers, and toasters next to hammers, saws, and heavy chains, she said.

She has worked at the store on-and-off for more than 50 years since marrying Bill Wallace, who died last month.

About the turn of the 20th century, carpenter Luther Wallace, Bill's grandfather, came to Ocean City from Philadelphia to fish and to build homes in the developing town.

He saw the need for a supplies store and opened a small shop on Asbury Avenue. The store changed locations a few times before Wallace Hardware settled in the 700 block of Asbury, the town's Main Street. Luther's son, Hulings, shepherded the business through the Great Depression and passed it on to Bill, who was its president for 60 years.

Bill Wallace quickly became known as someone who could fix anything. He built seven boats, restored four antique cars, delivered two babies, and helped scads of people with all sorts of household problems. He also volunteered with the rescue squad.

"When the tide was up and the wind was blowing, he was sailing in the back bay," read his obituary in the local newspaper after he died of Parkinson's disease Feb. 4.

He passed the store on to his children: Wallace-Wentz and her brothers, Mike and David. They hope to continue the legacy with a fifth generation.

With as much ceremony as possible in a cramped hardware store, each of the siblings' seven children was weighed as a baby in the ancient nail scale atop the sales counter.

"We hope that's a tradition that continues in our family for another 100 years," Wallace-Wentz said. The children, now in their teens and early 20s, take turns working at the store.

In their typical low-key style, Wallace-Wentz said, family members will give the new store a "soft opening" sometime before Memorial Day, decorate both stores' windows with homemade displays to commemorate the business' 100th anniversary, then call it a day.

"We really aren't used to a lot of fanfare," Wallace-Wentz said.