No horsing around
Local businessman opens holiday store in century-old livery stable A miscalculation opened the path for one local businessman to expand in downtown Uniontown. Steve Neubauer, owner of Neubauer’s Flowers at 3-5 S. Gallatin Ave., recently opened Neubauer’s Market House, a 15,000-square-foot facility at 34 E. Church St. featuring hundreds of items geared to the Christmas season.
The shop is the culmination of seven years’ work that began when he bought too much holiday merchandise one Christmas.
“People from downtown asked me if I’d set up a display in one of the empty stores downtown,” he said, adding that led to opening the store during the holiday season each year after.
He opened it at other sites downtown, most recently the former train station on Pittsburgh Street.
“We started in the G.C. Murphy building and it has grown over the years. Now, I can have it in my own building and we will change it for each season – spring, summer, fall and winter – and holidays, including Easter, Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day.”
However, by opening the new shop, Neubauer has also saved one of Uniontown’s downtown historic buildings.
Last November, Neubauer bought the red-brick ex-livery stable for $100,000. The last occupant of the 107-year-old structure was Bell & Cuppett wholesalers. Several years ago, Neubauer had purchased the former city bus depot that sat next to Bell & Cuppett, tearing it down to create a parking lot for his downtown business. So far, he has invested more than $350,000 in the new store.
“I’ve had my eye on this building for a long time,” Neubauer said, adding that “I told Mrs. Charles Bell (from whom he purchased the structure) that if she ever wanted to sell it, to call me first.”
Spending most of the past year renovating the structure, Neubauer has filled it with Christmas holiday items ranging from trees to ornaments to candles and a myriad of other goods. Also featured is a Pittsburgh Steelers and Penguins room.
Careful to retain the historic nature of the building, Neubauer and his family did much of the work, hiring local electrical and heating and air conditioning contractors to complete the project. “We removed almost 35 tons of debris,” including old plaster, wood and other material. The end product shows the original ceiling rafters and braces, herringbone-pattern brick floor and the brick walls.
Neubauer said future plans at the site include installing a 2,500-quare-foot greenhouse.
According to local historian Frank J. Kurtik, who prepared a history of the building for Neubauer, Joseph B. Tedrick and Thomas F. Williams hired contractor Frank Humbert of Uniontown to build the facility as a livery stable in 1902. One of the partners lived upstairs, Neubauer said.
Unfortunately, Kutrik wrote, the automobile had just arrived on the scene, tolling the death knell for horses as a mode of transportation. The livery business lasted for only about 15 years, Kutrik said.
Passing through a number of owners in its history, the building has housed liveries, taxicab services, a candy-distribution warehouse and even had ties to D.L. Clark, who developed the Clark candy bar.
“In addition to having been the founder of the D.L. Clark Co., Irish-born David L. Clark was president of the Fayette Candy Co.,” according to Kutrik’s history.
Later, the livery stable housed a technical school and several wholesale-goods businesses.
“This building has always fascinated me,” Neubauer said, adding it still has its second floor livery door overlooking a back alley, where workers hoisted hay and other goods into the loft.
“We uncovered a couple of other doors when we did the interior work,” he said. Marks are still seen on interior walls where horse stalls once were. Another of the building’s features is a circular window or oculus on the second floor, which had been boarded over. Neubauer opened it up by installing glass.
Although he did what is called a “soft opening” of the store on Nov. 9, Neubauer said response has been good. “We did an e-mail blast to our customers and put the sign on the building.” He held an open house Friday and Saturday.
He also will host a business after hours event with the Fayette Chamber of Commerce on Dec. 1.
Neubauer, who attends gift shows twice a year in Atlanta, Ga., does his own buying. “We have developed a nice following. We are what is called a good day-trip destination. We have people coming from Morgantown, W.Va., and Greensburg and Pittsburgh, as well as people who return to the area during the holidays.”
Neubauer previously renovated his flower shop, which is housed in two early 20th century buildings on South Gallatin Avenue. One was constructed in the 1890s and the other in the early 1900s.
Founded in 1921, Neubauer’s is a three-generation operation that has retail stores in Uniontown and Waynesburg and in Moundsville, W.Va. Neubauer’s also has its own greenhouse in Cameron, W.Va.
Steve’s father, Richard, opened the store in Waynesburg. “This (Uniontown) was the big city for us when we opened a store here in 1982,” Steve Neubauer said. He was 21 then and had already been in the business for four years. He still has uncles and cousins who are also involved in the operation’s other locations.
The community also has honored Neubauer for his work, business ethics and optimism.
The Fayette Chamber of Commerce named him its Herman M. Buck Award winner for 2002.
Neubauer currently serves as the vice chairman of Fay Penn Economic Development Council, Uniontown. He is a past national director of FTD and served on the marketing, executive and by-laws committees, as well as a representative to American Floral Marketing Council and Society of American Florists.
Neubauer is also a member of the Fayette Chamber of Commerce and a board member and past chairman of the Uniontown Downtown Business District Authority. He serves as the community chairman of the Uniontown Hospital Capital Campaign.
Neubauer and his wife of 25 years, Roberta, have two sons, Joseph, 23, and Robert, 19.
Neubauer’s Market House is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Neubauer’s Flowers is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.
All of Neubauer’s businesses can be reached by calling 724-437-5500.