This Country Town Doesn’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

According to John Duda, old-timers in town like to joke that, in the not-distant past, Route 202 in Granby was more or less just a quiet country road.
“I’ve heard people say that, 30 years ago, a dog could take a nap in the middle of the road in the middle of the day,” he said.
That’s probably not Fido’s best idea today, because 202 — the prime throughway in this town of 6,200 people — is exponentially busier.
Duda is the owner of Class Grass Garden Center on that road, just south of the historic town common. He’s been in business for the past 19 years, and like other business owners along this stretch, he’s seen this once-sleepy town get busier every year.
While neighboring communities, especially Belchertown, have experienced substantial residential building booms, Granby’s geography is extensively atop rocky ledge, meaning much of the terrain is wetland. Further down 202, Dan Darcy, owner of Allpower, said that commercial property in Granby is statistically more expensive than in neighboring communities.
“That’s always been the case,” he said. “People might think we’re off the beaten path in Granby, but we’re not. We’re in the center of Western Mass. on a major state byway. We’re about equally distant from the Vermont and Connecticut lines. It’s not as far as people think.”
Since 1972, Darcy has been the owner of Allpower, selling everything from motorcycles to chainsaws — an aptly named business if there ever was one. His thoughts on the proximity to just about everywhere else in the region has merit: His Suzuki motorcycle franchise was the number-three dealer for its sales region, which, in addition to Massachusetts, includes Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Eastern New York.
His boat sales took a hit with the last fuel-price spike, he said, “but our power-equipment sales were up this year 60% over last year. And that’s from working our butts off, pushing our name out there, being a bit more aggressive in the marketplace. My sales manager, Doug Guertin, had a sales goal ending this January, and he passed that number in July.”
Power equipment would seem a good fit for a country town. With many attractive buildings from Colonial times lining town roads, so too would be a business creatively reusing buildings from a bygone era.
Erika Deady-Wohlers calls her store Shabby Sheep, playing on both the aesthetic referred to as ‘shabby chic’ and the fact that her house and barns had once been a dairy and sheep farm. Just behind her historic center-chimney Colonial home, in a barn that was built in 1826, Deady-Wohlers sells fine furnishings and landscape elements, but that is just one business in her household.
Husband Nick owns a contracting firm, and he also builds farm tables for the store. Meanwhile, when Deady-Wohlers is not running back to help load sideboards or large Mexican clay pots into a customer’s truck, she’s running a true labor of love.
This second business is called Tutu Pour Mon Deux, and she makes children’s T-shirt tutus, with a third of the proceeds going to benefit the Children’s Hospital in Boston. Her story is inspirational, and Deady-Wohlers said that her hopes are for this two-year old venture to take off in the years to come.
For this, the latest installment of its Doing Business In series, BusinessWest takes an indepth look at Granby. While the main road may once have been a drowsy byway, this town isn’t content to let sleeping dogs lie.

Growing Up
Duda was busy helping load Christmas trees, wreaths, and other holiday greenery into awaiting customers’ vehicles, but he sat at his desk for a moment to catch his breath.
Reflecting back on his early days as a landscaper working out of a truck and a trailer, he said he’s pretty much always been a take-charge kind of guy. He owned the property where Class Grass now sits, and back in the day, he had plans to put up a garage for all his gear.
“I couldn’t get a mortgage here, though,” he remembered. “We started the building in 1990, and the housing market was in the tank. I told the bank I would build this building with a credit card if I had to. The bank told me to call them when I had the building up and framed, and they’d give me a mortgage. We got it up, got the mortgage, and here we are.”
Over the years, Duda has branched out to add departments and additional gardening features to his offerings. Water gardens, he said, have been a growing segment of the business.
“Now, though, we’re riding the winds of a down economy,” he continued, “and we have been for three turbulent years in a row. People are very conscious of what they’re spending, they are cutting way back, and our landscaper customers have reduced, because their clients aren’t landscaping the way they used to four years ago.”
He emphasized the good return on investment for homeowners to add improvements to their yard. “People can spend $100 here, go home, and not only get the benefit of some physical labor — and, of course, we’re all health-conscious now — but for that money, they can get enough things to add to their landscape that this investment will give them nine months of satisfaction, or even longer.”
In addition to a tough economy affecting people’s discretionary spending, Duda said that small garden centers like his have faced tough competition from big-box retailers. But that, he said, is a problem that business owners like himself are hoping to nip in the bud.
“What you’re seeing is a line in the sand,” he continued. “You’re either with small-business garden centers, or you’re going to sell to chain stores. Because we have so many companies to choose from, we independents don’t have to buy from you if you sell to the chains. We’re going to give our business to a supplier because he only sells to independents.”

Machine Made

Darcy said he can thank his family’s business for setting him on the path to Allpower 40 years ago.
When he graduated from Western New England College with a degree in engineering, he tried working with his father’s construction company, but he said with a shrug, “it can be tough working with family, and I wanted to do something different.”
That something would tap into his childhood passions — he’s ridden motorcycles since he was a little kid, he said. “I’ve always liked cars, bikes, I even learned to fly a plane when I was a teenager,” he added.
The business started as the local Suzuki motorcycle franchise, back in 1972, and it happened that Granby became the location because the sales rep from the Japanese company liked the relative proximity to the Honda motorcycle dealer in Chicopee, the old Menard and Holmberg.
That business is long gone, and Darcy’s shop has grown over the years to include boats, snowmobiles, mowers, snow blowers, tractors, and just about any tool with a motor you could imagine. Truly all power.
He attributes the success of his business to that changing line-up. “If you just sell motorcycles,” he said, “as do a lot of my friends — maybe they’ll sell three or four brands — if you have a good year, chances are it’s a good year for all three brands. But if you have a bad year, you have a bad year. It doesn’t matter what the brand is you sell.
“So, instead of selling multiple brands of motorcycles, we sell different product lines. So you might have a year where it rains most of the time, and no one is using their bike or boat, but the grass grows like heck, so all of a sudden the lawnmowers start selling more. And people have repair bills because of the heavier usage.” Last winter’s heavy snowfall, he said, contributed to a record year in sales of snowblowers.
Boat sales fell when gas prices skyrocketed, and he doesn’t forecast a robust year ahead for that market. But the success of his motorcycle sales has led the business to enter talks on adding another brand to his showroom. It’s still in the works, so no brand name could be mentioned, but he said it is a European maker, which he said will open him up to a new customer base.
Just up the road from Allpower, a new, 13,000-square-foot CVS is under construction at the town’s Five Corners, which marks one of the largest new commercial developments in the town’s history. But after 40 years in his storefront, Darcy said that, while there have been changes to Granby’s commercial landscape, it has more to do with the types of business rather than the volume.

In Like a Lamb
Deady-Wohlers’ business portfolio would be a good example of that changing landscape.
She said her business started as a means to utilize the outbuildings at her residential property. “Obviously, we’re not farmers,” she joked.
Shabby Sheep came about as an outlet for her degree in Architecture and Interior Design from UMass Amherst, and Nick’s fine cabinetry work. “He loves to do finish work — sofa tables, dining-room tables, things like that. We knew his output wouldn’t be enough, so we had to find another supplier. We stumbled across this woman, who has a store much like what ours became, although hers is bigger.
“After a few phone conversations, she took a liking to Nick and his laugh, and decided to share all of her contacts with us, to import on our own,” Deady-Wohlers continued. The furniture is rustic, yet colorful country pieces that are very much in vogue in the design world. She said that there are designers who work with her, and their clientele is a good way to get the word out.
Being on Route 202 across from the town school system is great exposure, she said, and there are days when a few pieces on display at the end of the driveway will lure people in. But, she said, the Shabby Sheep is just one enterprise which keeps her busy.
“When our youngest, Maely, was born, she had unexpected heart surgery at four days old,” she said. “The day that I was to take her home, she ‘coded.’ She went from Holyoke Hospital to Baystate, where she was stabilized, and from there she was sent to Children’s Hospital in Boston. They’re such a remarkable outfit, and I knew when we all went home safely that I had to do something more than just be grateful that they saved my daughter’s life.”
Tutu Pour Mon Deux was the idea she devised. Deady-Wohlers uses short- or long-sleeve T-shirts and sews a band of organza to the bottom, creating a tutu. The designs are fully customizable online by the consumer, and through her own self-marketing, she said the hope is to get them into a retail outlet someday.
She credits the help of some good friends in getting this business off the ground, adding that it is new territory for her altogether. “I’m funding this entire business out of pocket,” she explained, “so there are some baby steps in going forward. I have gotten some great press about the company, though, and lots of great people to help me along the way. The PR aspect of this is hard, though; it’s non-stop, pitching to magazine editors, sending out samples. It’s a crash course in social media or you name it. I learn something new every day.”
February will mark the second appearance of Tutu Pour Mon Deux in Scholastic’s Parent & Child magazine, in time for American Heart Month. For Deady-Wohlers, though, every month is spent keeping her eyes on her expanding business enterprises.
Like her adopted hometown of Granby, she’s getting increased exposure in the marketplace — both for her furniture and for the children’s clothing. Looking out across the interior of her showroom barn, she summed it all up by saying, “it’s not just about furniture; it’s creativity.”