About Oakes Brothers

Mission

At Oakes Brothers, we use our decades of experience in building supply, hardware, and home design to help you buy the best possible products for your project at the best price. We integrate and coordinate the services you need between architect, engineer, designer, builders, suppliers, and homeowner to ensure you get exactly what you need at the best price, with the best service, and with timely delivery. Oakes Brothers offers you the best customer service by hiring the finest employees, treating them with respect, and paying them the best salary and compensation package we can afford. In every one of our actions we show our strong sense of obligation and responsibility to our friends, neighbors and family here in the community where we grew up, live, and work.

History

Brothers Wendell, Winston, and Neil Oakes grew up on their family’s dairy farm in Piermont, NH, just across the Connecticut River from what would become Oakes Brothers, Inc. They attended area schools and lived and worked locally after they graduated. Wendell ran his own automobile repair business and garage; Winston was a successful building contractor; and Neil was a technician for the telephone company in White River Junction.

In 1973 the three men decided to pool their resources and buy McLam’s Hardware and Lumber Supply on Route 5 in Bradford, which had been in business since the 1950s. That first year they employed three people besides themselves and added a blacksmith shop where Wendell built cattle truck bodies; they sold $253,000-worth of hardware, building materials, truck bodies, and woodworking equipment from about 3700 square feet of store space.

In the years after they bought the company, the economy of Bradford and surrounding towns changed, as many of the area’s farmers sold and sub-divided their land to build homes. Oakes Brothers changed, too, developing specialized departments and hiring employees with specialized knowledge and experience as they increased their building supply and hardware business; added computer-aided kitchen, bath, and home design; became a Marvin Windows franchise; researched and acquired several semi-custom kitchen cabinet lines; and added plumbing, paint, and electrical supply departments.

All those additional services, products, and employees required more space, and in 1989 contractor John Horton completed their new, 18,000-square-foot store a few hundred feet northeast of their original shop.

Today, Oakes Brothers, Inc., employs 39 people, and their sales exceed $1 million a month. Building contractors make up 70% of their sales, and they have many large commercial customers, among them Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. The brothers are proud to note that many of their customers have shopped with them for decades and express high satisfaction with their product quality and service.

Product quality, value, and customer satisfaction have driven their business since the beginning. “We screen and evaluate everything we sell,” says Neil Oakes. “If a product does not meet our standards, we won’t keep it in the store.”

One of the founding brothers, Winston, left the company in 1997 to start a new business, but Oakes Brothers has benefited from the experience and dedication of other Oakes family members, and from employees who have worked with the company for decades.

Wendell’s three sons have all worked for the company. Dale currently manages their high-end residential quote department. Danny ran the cabinet shop for years before opening his own cabinet business, Daniel and Sons Custom Cabinetry in Piermont, and Rodney manages the Oakes Brothers Marvin Window franchise. There is a Marvin Window showroom in the Bradford store and also at the Powerhouse Mall in West Lebanon.

Stanton Fadden, a key accounts manager in the high-end residential quote department, went to school with Neil and started working at Oakes 34 years ago. Chris O’Donnell, one of their drivers, and Ray Atwood, yard manager and dispatcher, have worked there 23 and 19 years, respectively. Many other employees have been there more than 10 years. For example, Betty White, the company’s bookkeeper, has worked for them 11 years.

Visit the Oakes Brothers Photo Gallery