Memories Remain : Canoga Park Hardware Store Closes After 30 Years

During his 30 years of running a corner hardware store in Canoga Park, Vincent Di Cecco has sold a lot of nails and talked homeowners through many a weekend construction project gone awry.

On Wednesday, however, it was time to pack up the sawbuck brackets and the socket wrenches, the lamp dimmers and the dusty packages of beeswax, and say “Goodby.”

“I’m very sad-hearted about it,” Di Cecco said. “I’ve got all kinds of wonderful memories about this place.” Friends, loyal customers, Canoga Park Chamber of Commerce members and officers of the Canoga Owensmouth Historical Society gathered around Di Cecco Wednesday evening, snacking on home-baked cookies and sipping orange punch at a makeshift wake for the old days. The store had officially stopped doing business Sunday, but the door remained open to longtime customers until Wednesday.

Many well-wishers mourned the loss of one of the last hardware stores that sold bolts by the bin, not by the plastic packet. No matter what the problem or part, Di Cecco could fix it, explain it, find it or order it. They worried about the future, not just of the gregarious Di Cecco, who says he really wasn’t ready to retire, but also of the future of the building his store has occupied since Dwight D. Eisenhower was President.

Like Di Cecco, the tile and wooden building at 21355 Sherman Way provides the San Fernando Valley with a link to its past. Originally constructed as the Owensmouth Railroad Depot in 1912, with chandeliers and architectural flourishes, the building is thought by the Canoga Owensmouth Historical Society to be the “oldest significant structure in the West Valley with the exception of Leonis Adobe” in Old Town Calabasas, said historical society member Bill Brady.

Di Cecco’s landlord, the Southern Pacific railroad, ordered the 70-year-old hardware man to vacate a month ago. Despite the building’s designation in May by the city of Los Angeles as a historic monument, Southern Pacific spokesman Mike Conway said the property is up for sale.

“We hope that whatever the railroad’s plans are, we can work cordially with the city and historic preservation board to preserve the building,” Brady said.

Brady described the depot as “wonderfully, beautifully preserved,” with ornate tile work that was designed to give train passengers a glamorous first impression of Owensmouth, the forerunner of Canoga Park, which was being developed as a new housing frontier shortly after the turn of the century.

Brady said Di Cecco enthusiastically helped historical society members study the building’s original structure, which is now mostly obscured behind pegboard and rooms that were added on through the years.

It came as a surprise to historical society members that the railroad did not share their interest, Brady said.

“I would have thought that they would have sentiment about an old railroad building. I thought they would help us,” Brady said. “But I guess they’re not so much a railroad company as they are a real estate company. They want to tear the damned thing down!”

Southern Pacific spokesman Conway refused to speculate about plans for the building, but he said the decision to sell the property was made several years ago, well before the Canoga Owensmouth Historical Society became involved in trying to save it, perhaps as a museum.

Conway said the building on the 4.3-acre site had depreciated and would probably be marketed to industrial developers. As for the eviction of Di Cecco’s hardware store, Conway said, “We are simply exercising our rights as outlined in a commercial lease signed by Southern Pacific and Vincent Di Cecco.”

Because the city designated the building as a historical and cultural monument, it cannot be demolished or substantially changed for a year, and the deadline might even be extended to give supporters a chance to raise money for its preservation or relocation, said Jackie Brainard, press aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus.

At Wednesday’s party, longtime Canoga Park residents said they weren’t sure what they would miss most--Di Cecco and his 80,000-item inventory, or the admittedly time-worn building his hardware store occupied.

One thing is certain, though: Canoga Park without Di Cecco’s will never be the same.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Norma Drazich said. “We just had some electricians at the house, and I needed to replace an old porcelain light fixture in a closet. Home Club didn’t have it, and Builders Emporium didn’t have it.

“I came in here, and there it was,” she said.