Foxton Hammer Hardware store on the move

Foxton Hammer Hardware project manager Braden van Echten, owner Emma van Echten, store manager Brent van Echten and general manager Trish Hoisman.

A family-owned Foxton hardware store has outgrown its old Main St base and is moving to a new building down the street.

Foxton Hammer Hardware’s new building will have its official opening tomorrow.

The late Jake Slykhuis, who migrated from the Netherlands in 1957, bought Foxton Hardware in 1984 with daughter Emma van Echten at a time when interest rates for business loans were 24%.

Since then, the store has continued to grow, no longer stocking just nuts and bolts and building and plumbing supplies. The fact that it now supplies kitchen sinks shows how the business has diversified.

Since Slykhuis died in September 2022, the business has continued to be family-owned and is now a third-generation enterprise. Four of van Echten’s seven children – Braden, Brent, Katrina and Melinda – are involved in day-to-day operations in various roles.

Van Echten has seen the business grow from the early days of handwritten accounts and statements on the typewriter. There are now 65 staff between the Foxton store and Levin Mitre 10, which the family also owns.

The Foxton store has the same pricing and stock as Mitre 10 but has retained the Foxton Hammer Hardware name.

The new building had been given a complete facelift since it was bought two years ago with new insulation, heating and earthquake strengthening, van Echten said. It was originally a timber yard, which then became a second-hand goods shop.

The first Foxton Hammer Hardware building in Main St was 17m x 5m, which included an outhouse toilet for staff. There were five adjoining shops of similar size, which were bought to create more space as the store grew.

The store then relocated to a larger space in Wharf St in 2005, where it stayed for seven years before returning to the initial Main St site, where it has been until the current move.