For the past 115 years, businesses on Baltimore?s Lombard Street have come and gone, yet through it all a hardware store has stood at the corner of East Lombard and Ann streets.
“It started as Fauldrath & Son in 1891, was taken over by the Sirotas in the ?60s, and we bought it in 1996,” said Lillian Crowley, who with her husband, Ken, owns Lombard Hardware & Tool Rental.
“We grow each year, little by little,” said Ken Crowley, who grew up on nearby Chapel Street and began working at the hardware store in 1980 after seeing an ad in the local paper. Today, he said, his clients are split evenly between local residents and businesses, including home builders Ruppert O?Brien, Prestige Homes and Maryland Homes.
“It was always a dream to own my own business,” said Lillian Crowley. So, when Jerry and Irma Sirota decided to sell in 1996, Crowley ? who had managed the store for years ? applied for a loan from Provident Bank to buy the shop. The no-money-down loan was approved in a day, and the Crowleys have not looked back since.
Beyond the hardware store basics, the Crowleys keep busy cutting and treading pipe, finishing same-day windowscreen repairs, and offering custom stained-glass creations for longtime neighbors and new, white collar arrivals.
Whether the customers were the renters of the 1980s or today?s owners of rehabbed row houses, the little corner hardware store with the original hardwood floors and back-room storage boxes has alwaysmaintained a simple philosophy: Customers first.
Employee Robert McNeal said he answers customers? questions and provides answers, even if it means the customer ends up buying nothing. “You answer their questions fully and honestly, and they love you,” Ken Crowley said.
With a Home Depot as close as Dundalk, the Crowleys must provide more than just convenience. They credit their survival to keeping prices low by maintaining a “skeleton staff” and their ability to stay attuned to the needs of their customers.
“The key is to cater to what people want and need,” said Ken Crowley. This service-first mentality means selling customers who need only one bolt or nail just one bolt or nail ? not a bulk package.
It also means sharing years of know-how and experience with customers.
“I had a girl come in the other day looking for a referral to a plumber, but when I heard the problem, it sounded to me like she needed either a valve or a flapper,” said Ken Crowley, who explained to the customer how to install both fixtures on her toilet.
ABOUT THE STORE
» Lombard Hardware & Tool Rental
1747 E. Lombard St., Baltimore
» 410-276-1294
» Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, Wednesday 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., closed Sunday
» Size: 80 by 38 feet, three floors, three full-time employees
