ShareThisKIDRON, Ohio - To the scores of tourists who travel to the sprawling but somehow-still-charming hardware store that put this tiny farming community on the map a half-century ago, Jay Lehman is a local version of Bill Gates, an astute businessman who grew a tiny niche market into a global enterprise.
The rural store that bears his name has gone from serving a few hundred locals each year to one that peddles its old-fashioned wares (some authentic, others reproductions) to hundreds of thousands of customers in more than 200 countries.
Half a million do their shopping each year in person, pairing a trip down hardware's Memory Lane with a visit to Ohio's Amish country. Others boost company sales through its 170-page catalog or extensive Web site. Orders have been sent as far as Tibet.
Yet the plain-living Amish who travel there by buggy in search of things no one else sells in person -- a wood-burning cook stove or hand-crank mixer, perhaps, or a rebuilt Maytag wringer washer that runs on gasoline -- probably have a different view of Lehman: that of a savior.
Had he not bought the 30-by-40-foot hardware store perched at a crossroad in the center of town back in 1955, many of the items they need to live off the grid might likely have vanished. Nor would some of them have jobs. It's gotten awfully tough in these parts to make a full-time living off the land, so a growing number of Amish are turning to cottage industries such as furniture making and arts and crafts for their livelihoods. Lehman's Hardware sells the fruits of their labor to other Amish, tourists and non-Amish locals.
"Even if they can't farm, they want to live on the farm," Lehman says.
That said, the Amish today account for just 10 percent of his business. Replacing them at Lehman's cash registers are nostalgia buffs and hobbyists, along with environmentalists looking for sustainable products and missionaries and homesteaders in search of appliances and other household items that don't rely on power.
The rich and famous also have come calling. So has Hollywood. Rachael Ray, Paula Deen and Martha Stewart are just a few of the celebrities who have bought from Lehman's and its product has been featured in films as varying as "The Patriot" and "Cold Mountain" to "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Mystic River."
A devoted Mennonite who still lives on the farm he grew up on, Lehman, who recently turned 80, is as surprised as anyone at his store's success; he was always more interested in the hands-on "fixing" aspect of the business. That's why he became a mechanic at age 17 for a local garage instead of following in his father's footsteps as a farmer.
At 20, Lehman left Ohio for Frankfurt, Germany, where as a missionary with his church he helped build homes for refugees under the Mennonite Central Committee-run PAX program.
His return to Kidron three years later found him out of a job. The two-room country hardware store up for sale promised a new start. Or, as Lehman, who ended up buying it for $30,000 on his father's signature, recalls: "I thought it'd be interesting."
Thanks to a Thursday livestock auction in a barn across the street his store just happened to come with a predominantly Amish customer base -- a segment of the population with whom he shared many beliefs and a similar plain way of life.
A second, three-year Mennonite Central Committee assignment in 1961 with his first wife, Ella Mae, took him to The Congo and Kenya, where he made travel arrangements for missionaries, stretched to 13 years. His father and brother operated the hardware store in his absence. And indeed, he could have been perfectly content serving those living beyond the reaches of electricity, including the missionary community he'd come to know so well.
Then came the Arab oil embargo, and Lehman's natural entrepreneurial skills took flight.
Back in the late '70s, there were still Amish who insisted on plain-black cast-iron wood stoves, which the hardware store bought 60 at a time. When word got out about this alternative energy source, a supply of Warm Morning stoves that should have lasted three years sold in fewer than three months. And because he had an "in" with the supplier, Lehman got preference over the Johnny-come-lately stores that hoped to bring these sought-after appliances to market.
Today, Lehman's is the go-to place for what daughter Glenda Lehman Ervin calls "the serious and the curious." Mrs. Lehman Ervin, 46, became the marketing director in 1997 and her oldest brother, Galen, took over as company president in 2002; two other children are not involved in day-to-day operations.
Semi-retired for 10 years, Lehman comes in late and leaves early, always in his denim uniform and always on the lookout for the next big thing. That leaves more time for tennis, travel with his second wife, Emma, whom he married in 2001, and planting trees (30,000 in the past 20 years). He still maintains an office -- actually, it's just a corner desk with a view of the parking lot.
Lehman's Hardware
Where: Kidron, Ohio
Hours: Mon.- Sat. 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and Thurs. nights until 8 p.m. Closed Sun. and most major holidays.
Information: www.lehmans.com or 1-888-438-5346.
(Gretchen McKay can be reached at gmckay(at)post-gazette.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)
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