- July 22, 2026
-
-
Loading
Loading
Tad Duvall walked down the aisles of Toole’s Ace Hardware with ease with his son, Tucker.
He knows the Winter Garden hardware store well, always choosing to go there before any other hardware store for more than two decades.
And the store employees know him.
“(The employees joke): ‘All right, Tad, when you retire, you want to come work here, because you know the store better than anybody in here?’” Duvall said. “My son, Tucker, he comes in here, and they know Tucker from me. My wife, Tracy, comes in here; they know my wife because of me. It’s guaranteed. I can actually call up here and say, ‘Hey, I’m looking for something, Tracy’s there.’ And they will give it to her.”
It’s how the Toole’s Ace Hardware employees interact with their customers and help fix any home issues that owner Walter Toole attributes to Toole’s Ace Hardware’s 120 years in business.
Duvall was shopping at Toole’s Ace Hardware as the store celebrated its 120th anniversary Saturday, July 11.
The hardware store first opened as the historic Bray Hardware in 1906 on Plant Street. The store was 3,500 square feet — 21 feet wide by 170 feet long — with all wooden shelves.
Toole purchased Bray Hardware in 1983.
Toole said the store’s business mostly was involved in citrus as Winter Garden was a citrus city.
While the other businesses in downtown Winter Garden would close Wednesday afternoon and at 2 p.m. Saturdays, Bray remained open.
Much like the radical freezes in the late 1980s destroyed the citrus industry in the area, the hardware store took a big hit as well. With more businesses closing up shop on Plant Street, Toole decided to move his store to where it currently sits at 500 S. Dillard St. because there was more activity on the street compared to Plant Street.
The store only was 8,000 square feet, but when the tornado destroyed the store in 1998, Toole and his family rebuilt it, giving them an opportunity to add 2,000 square feet.
In the four months rebuilding the store, Toole said the community continued to support the business with customers coming to the trailers the family had behind the construction site to order supplies. They would send someone to the Toole’s Ace Hardware in Clermont or South Orlando for the items, which the customers would pick up the next day.
No matter the situation, Neil Asma, president and CEO of Toole’s Ace Hardware, said employees always are there to help, even if the store has closed for the day.
Toole recalled decades ago when officials from Winter Garden Fire Rescue would call Toole at 7 or 8 p.m. saying then needed some supplies. Toole would go to the store, retrieve what they needed, charge it to the city and deliver it to the fire station.
“You can’t necessarily do it like that anymore, but we certainly can have the same heart,” Toole said. “The heart hasn’t changed. The heart of the city, to me, hasn’t changed.”
Since 1983, Walter and Patricia Toole have been building more Ace Hardware locations, with their 14th opening in Windermere in 2025 and plans to open their 15th in Minneola next year once the city approves permitting.
What makes Toole’s stores stand out are the people who work there.
Asma said at all the Toole’s Ace Hardware locations, there are longtime employees. On average, the employees stay with Toole’s Ace Hardware for more than five years.
Toole said the culture of care and solving problems and always doing the right thing has led to the company’s 120 years of success.
“I always told (Asma) the thing to keep in mind when you make decisions is always do the right thing,” he said. “It might not be in your best interest, but the key to running a business is your culture and telling yourself the truth and telling yourself that no matter what we do, we’re going to do the right thing.”
