Waltham’s Nickerson & Hills now under ACE Hardware umbrella

An integral store in Waltham since 1946, Nickerson & Hills celebrated its 80th anniversary this year. But with the impressive milestone comes a substantial change for the paint store. Located at 917 Main St., the business is now part of ACE Hardware.

Keith Hills, the grandson of one of the founders, Russell Hills, spoke on the store’s history. “I was a stock boy from around 12 years old, working with my grandfather on Saturdays. My grandmother was the original bookkeeper, and my father ran a paint contracting business.”

“My grandfather was a painter with roots in Waltham before opening the store. Nickerson was a friend of my grandfather’s, and they started together. Down the road, my father bought him out, and they remained good friends for all their lives,” Hills said.

However, when it came time for him  to run the store, he realized his interests didn’t lie in retail. “The store was going downhill, and I was never really a retail guy,” he explained. “It’s a hard landscape to be a retail store. We were a very successful, old-fashioned store in the ’80s and ’90s, but the changing landscape has caught up with us. [It’s] a good deal for me to have someone take over and put a really good hardware store in Waltham.”

Hills then spoke with family friend Jeff Rogers, who owns multiple power stores across Massachusetts, to see if he was interested in taking over Nickerson & Hills. Rogers contacted ACE Hardware to see if they’d back a store in Waltham, and they readily agreed. “ACE Hardware giving Jeff the go-ahead says a lot that the area could really use a hardware store,” Hills said.

The shift in leadership means that Nickerson & Hills will now have two major changes: the products you can purchase through the retail store, and where you’re buying them. E-commerce will now be available through Nickerson & Hills, encompassing everything an ACE Hardware has to offer, such as  lawnmowers or grills. “It’s very unlike what old Nickerson’s would have sold,” said Rogers. He  emphasized that he will “take care of our paint customers because that’s the legacy of the store. We are a paint-first hardware store.”

The ACE Hardware name doesn’t mean that Nickerson & Hills is now part of a corporation in the way that a Home Depot would be, Rogers said. “ACE is a co-op, and every store is individually owned and operated. They don’t give you direction on what to do, but are instead a buy-in group with a name everyone knows. The name helps the brand as we openly display the store and ACE together.”

Even though the store is undergoing many changes in layout and leadership, the legacy of the store will still be recognized. “Some people walk into that store and they haven’t been in there in 10 years, but they were there when they were kids. It’s cool like that, that it feels like coming home. It’s now going to look completely different but still have the same name,” Rogers said. 

“I still have the contracting business and my supplies there, because I’ve been there so long. I’ll walk in every day with my dog and we make ourselves comfortable, even though everything has totally changed. I love watching it become more successful, and how much the community appreciates it too. We’re still a family-owned business, still a small town feel, but we’ll have more resources and more product,” Hills said.

Another element of the store that’ll remain unchanged is longtime employee and member of the Nickerson & Hills family, 72-year-old Jerry Champagne. “Jerry Champagne is a Waltham guy. … Everybody loves Jerry. He’s worked in Waltham businesses his whole life, and now will be working for Jeff. People come in looking for Jerry. It’s kind of his store in a way, as he’s been in charge of making the decisions and ordering everything,” Hills said.

Though leadership may have changed, the name and values of the store haven’t. Look for a grand opening next month, and welcome Rogers to the Waltham community.