Inside Baker’s Hardware, Where The Clocks Stopped: Unique South Chatham Business Turns 75

SOUTH CHATHAM – If you’re visiting Baker’s Hardware in South Chatham on this, its 75th year in business, you’d better plan ahead. It’s only open seasonally, and only on certain days of the week. And despite the store’s timeless charm, it would be a mistake to assume that it’ll be there forever.

 With its creaky floors and historic-house smell, Baker’s Hardware is an experience. It’s got everything you’d expect in an old fashioned hardware store: paint, fasteners, small appliances, mousetraps and the like. But it’s been all but forgotten by the wholesalers that keep national chain stores stocked with modern tools and gizmos, so much of its merchandise is many, many years old. Even the displays for some goods date back to the 1950s.

 For many items, that means that, when the current stock sells out, that’s it. But it also means that the tools they have on the shelves were from an era before today’s “buy it cheap and throw it away when it breaks” model. Sometimes, owner Bob Baker gets no customers at all on a given day; sometimes, there’s a rush of people looking to buy those popular wooden clothes drying racks displayed on the front lawn, or a Baker’s Hardware T-shirt. Some visitors come hunting for a particular item, but many come just to browse. It’s something Bob Baker doesn’t mind; now a retiree, he’s happy enough to sit down and chat with customers, testing out the lawn chairs out front. 

He’ll happily tell you about his father, who ran a grocery store downtown, left to fight in World War II, and then returned and opened the hardware store to supplement his income as a milk delivery man. After his passing, the store passed to Bob, a retired landscaper, who now runs it as a part-time job. It’s really more of a pastime than a cash cow, but it keeps him busy and engaged, daughter Amy (Baker) Carlson said. It’s also a place where his granddaughter, 12-year-old Sophia Carlson, sells her popular handmade crafts.

There’s no website. They don’t take credit cards. There’s no cash register — just a ledger book. There’s no parking lot, since it’s rare for more than one customer to visit at once. And they might not have exactly what you’re looking for.

 “You’ve got to come in with an open mind and wander. It’s that kind of store, it’s an experience,” Carlson said. And not to be postponed.

 “Seventy-five [years] is a big deal,” she said. “Because we don’t know how long it’ll continue to remain open. My husband and I know, at some point this will become ours, and I don’t know that we will be able to sustain it. I mean, it’s not a lucrative business for our generation,” Carlson said. “So enjoy it now.”