This season, we are celebrating 35 years in business which means it’s time to take a look back at all the changes the years have wrought.
The Rock Pile began on Dover Center in Westlake (underneath where Drug Mart is currently). When we needed to move to the Nagel Road location, it turned out to be a wonderful blessing in disguise, placing us in what would become the perfect location for our growing business.
When Brian first moved into the house on the property in 1982, it was more than a bit of a fixer-upper. The land was overgrown and wild, which for my sister and I was like walking into an adventure waiting to happen. There were two old barns filled with all sorts of odd trinkets and tools. We could see the evidence of the wine making that had taken place on the property. The larger of the two barns needed to be torn down, but the smaller barn eventually became the first store.
A few years after moving in, we unearthed a wine cellar and it looked as though a fire had torn through it at one time. Based on the stories we heard from some of our older customers, we learned one of the previous owners had been making fireworks which resulted in an explosion. We loved hearing about the history of the place and many customers had great stories to tell.
When The Rock Pile opened on Nagel Road, there was almost nothing nearby and felt pretty wild. We had a couple of beautiful watch dogs, punnily named Tik and Tok. It had the feel of an old rural farm, right on the edge of fast growing suburbs.
Back then, we used an old camper trailer for the office, ringing up customers while they stood in the doorway. We remodeled the remaining barn and turned it into a store. We added pet foods and bird feed to our bulk landscape product lines. Oh, to reminisce about the days when our back stock of feed was stored in a loft that could only be reached by ladder. In 1995, the current store was completed, and we wondered how in the world we’d fill it. We laugh at those days, because now we struggle to find space for that very cool new product that we just brought in.
After 35 years, we have been so blessed to have amazing customers and team members, including our family’s 3rd generation, as a part of our business. This has been a labor of love, and also of sweat, and quite a bit of dirt. Thank you for enjoying this journey with us and here’s to another 35 years!
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written by Jenny Keener
