Trousdale Brothers Running Sister Home Hardware Stores In Inverary & Sydenham

Feb 08, 2022

The change of ownership at Inverary Home Hardware, formerly Northway Home Hardware, was in the works before the beginning of the COVID pandemic upended the retail environment.

Matt and Will Trousdale, who run Trousdale Home Hardware in Sydenham, met with Reta and Roger Azulay in early 2020, just before the pandemic hit, to “start a conversation” as he recalls, “about the Azulay’s future plans and the possibilities for a transition of ownership for the Inverary store”.

But that meeting was only possible because Matt had come back to join Will and their father John five years earlier. That put both of them in charge of a family business in Sydenham whose roots go back to the founding of the first Trousdale bakeshop in Sydenham around 1836. At one time there were three Trousdale bakeries in Sydenham as brothers were competing against each other, but eventually Percy Trousdale won out and slowly transitioned his bakeshop into a grain store and then a general store, which his son Nobe Trousdale took over. Nobe’s son John opened the Foodland and Hardware stores at their current location. After Nobe died in 2004, the original store was repurposed as a gift store.

The hardware business remains the core business for the family. Will focuses mainly on the retail store and Matt deals with the lumber and construction end of the business, while John, who is now 70, comes in every day and helps out.

“He has a lot of experience in every aspect of the business,” said Will, “we can bounce ideas off of him and he is not shy about letting us know what he thinks.”

Because both the Inverary and Sydenham hardware stores operate as Home Hardware affiliated independent businesses, the idea of Matt and Will purchasing Northway faded into the background during the early, and continual, series of COVID pivots in the hardware and building centre business, but it never disappeared. In the spring of 2021 negotiations began in earnest and the exchange was made in October.

Since then, the Northway Store has been renamed, and a computerised inventory system has been put in. As well, the warehouse property north of Inverary, that houses the Maple Syrup equipment in the winter and spring of the year, is being developed as a full lumber yard.

“By the time the building season begins we will have the yard fully stocked,” said Matt, and the Inverary Store has joined the ranks of Home Hardware Building Centres.

“Our intentions for the Inverary Home Building Centre is to serve the communities of Inverary, Perth Road, Sunbury and Battersea, with the kind of service that they have become accustomed to from Reta over the years. It is a sister store to Trousdale’s, and there are advantages to that, but it is its own business.”

The brothers are spending time in both of the stores, and on most days one of them is in Sydenham and the other is in Inverary. They are working on upgrading the display at the main store in Inverary with some new shelving, and until the snow came, they had graders putting in the lumber yard at the warehouse site.

“The Inverary store carries more agricultural products than the Sydenham store, because it is a different community, and both communities are seeing a lot of growth, so we are making use of the Home Hardware supply chain to make sure we are ready with the products that people need,” said Will.

Looking to the future, a plan to build a new location, for both the Trousdale Home Hardware and Foodland stores, on a property on the southeast corner of the junction of Rutlege and Sydenham Roads, to the east of Sydenham, remains as a long-term goal.

As far as Inverary goes, Matt said that at some point they would like to bring all of the product lines and services, which include hardware, agricultural supplies, building supplies, household supplies, beer and liquor and even the lottery outlet to a single location. That could be near the main store/liquor store location at Perth Road and Moreland Dixon, which is  a rental location, at the location just north of Inverary, which they own, or at a new location in or close to Inverary.    

“The important thing for us is to provide the products that people need, and the kind of service that they are used to, equally in both locations. We are really lucky to have quality, committed staff in Sydenham, and lucky now to be working with another great group in Inverary,” said Will.