Andrew Baren
DECORATIVE HARDWARE MAVEN
Katonah Architectural Hardware is an outsized resource for high-end hardware and owner/operator Andrew Baren is the homegrown hardware maven who’s been fitting the finest homes around the globe for the last forty years.
“My dad went to Cornell and was an architect at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which was then and is still the largest architectural firm in the world, and my mom went to Barnard and, after working as a concert pianist and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was the first paid employee of the Katonah Museum of Art. We moved from Yorktown to North Salem when I was in Fourth Grade - and, although I think North Salem is a wonderful place, the move totally disrupted the happy suburban childhood my one-year older brother and I had been enjoying. We moved into a big house on a big piece of property that had been owned by the Mott applesauce family and is now known as Hummingbird Hill, on the northern shore of the Titicus Reservoir - where there was plenty of room to roam, but no cul-de-sacs for riding bikes and where we were the ‘new kids on the block’. …It was good for my parents, but not good for my brother and I. I wasn’t a bad kid, but I was always getting into some kind of mischief, and I didn’t pay much attention or find much success as a student in the North Salem system. …So, for 10th grade my folks indulged my desires to become a ski bum and sent me off to the Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs. And for 11th grade, I went to New Hampton School in New Hampshire.”
“When my senior year of high school rolled around, in 1981, my dad had decided he’d had enough of the corporate environment at Skidmore…and so he bought what was then called Katonah Feed & Hardware, at 180 Katonah Avenue, across the street from where we are now - and changed the name of the store to Katonah Paint & Hardware. …I finished high school by taking classes at Westchester Community College and went to work in the store. From that point forward, while all the kids my age were off in their ivory towers at college, I was learning how to operate a business.”
“We started out as more of a country-style general store than anything else. We sold and delivered wallpaper - which wasn’t a great business, we sold a lot of paint - but the margin and labor involved never really justified the effort, and we sold more Weber grills than anyone else around - with the sales line that ‘we would be over to deliver and set-up the grill…and ‘stay for steaks’. We even sold salt blocks - because folks wanted to attract deer to their properties in those days! It was not easy, but I dug-in, worked my butt off, learned everything I could about being in business, began to hire and manage the staff and, after only a year or two, I was running the store. …In addition, before I was 18, I bought the contract on a condo being built at Cross RIver Meadows - financed with a loan against a purchase contract at Katonah Paint & Hardware from the local Dime Savings Bank that was then in Katonah - and flipped it for a $15,000 profit. I took that money and bought a 1983 Mustang GT500, which was one of the fastest American-made cars. The entrepreneur in me was running at full speed!”
“I met my wife, Erica, at the pool at the Saw Mill Club. Our first date was to go see Witness at the Bedford Playhouse on February 19, 1985. …We were married on March 15, 1987, and in the same year I bought the business from my dad. …I had no college. No plan. And no playbook.”
“But, by the late 80’s I’d really transformed the business! …First of all, we became hyper-focused on the customer’s experience. Unlike our competitors, we stayed open on Sundays to be more available for residential customers, and we opened at seven-thirty in the morning every day to be more accessible for the contractors who needed to make pick-ups and show-up at job sites at eight. And I built a team of people - including as many local kids as possible doing jobs around the store - who treated each customer, and each purchase, with genuine focus and attention. My philosophy has always been to advise the customer as if it was my own house! …And I changed our mix of goods to be focused on decorative hardware - and started to offer the hardware for sale with the unique advantages that distinguished our offering and continue to make us stand apart today: we are available to go to a home or a jobsite to assess the requirement, and we package and ship or deliver all parts of each piece of hardware distinctly - meaning you get everything you need for each door collected from the involved suppliers and separately packaged from the rest of the order, and; we used to install in. I started to get bigger and bigger contracts from the condo builders who were building in the area - like at Guard Hill in Mt. Kisco. ...And I opened a second store in Cross River called Lewisboro Paint & Hardware.”
“My dad had always said that hardware was like the forgotten child in the building process. That hardware for commercial and residential projects alike was often considered too late, and was the consistent cause of sourcing and installation complications. And yet, when done correctly, the hardware can be the jewel of the home. …With that principal in mind, around 1990 and while we were still operating the retail store, I started to focus exclusively in the high-end decorative hardware market. Conyers Farm in Connecticut was just being developed and I got the contract to do one of the first mansions there from one of the biggest builders in Greenwich, and I began to do the hardware for all of his high-end homes. In 1993, I got the job doing the hardware for Bill Gates’ sixty-six thousand square foot house near Seattle. I was off to the races. Our method of surveying the job and simplifying packaging and delivery truly set us apart. Working primarily with architects, builders, and designers, we built a track record of delivering exceptional hardware, on time and on budget. I started attending the World Hardware Show in Cologne, Germany and sourcing specialty hardware from all over the world. And I formed lasting relationships with Sun Valley Bronze Hardware and other best-in-class hardware manufacturers who remain my key suppliers to this day.”
“It became apparent that I needed to be showcasing our hardware as the luxury good that it is and not just as the featured product in a shop with other retail hardware store products, and that to reach beyond our area I needed to meet the designers and other professionals where they are working rather than expecting a new customer from elsewhere to come and see us in Katonah. So I opened very impressive showrooms at 135 East 55th Street in Manhattan and in the Merchandise Mart in Chicago - that we continue to operate today. And I began to pester the owner of the building we’re in now - at the corner of Katonah Avenue and Valley Road - to buy his building in order to house a showroom and serve as the primary office of what I named Katonah Architectural Hardware, entirely separate from Katonah Paint & Hardware across the street. We finally agreed on a price and went to contract on what turned out to be the day of the great flood in Katonah resulting from Hurricane Floyd in 1999. …We closed anyway, and at the same price, despite the flood, and have over the years since morphed into the configuration we have now, with Houlihan Lawrence and From the Roots in the retail space at the ground level at 143 Katonah Avenue, and with our showroom and offices at 13 Valley Road, on the second floor of the building. …And then I ended-up selling both Katonah Paint & Hardware and Lewisboro Paint & Hardware in 2015 to focus solely on growing Katonah Architectural Hardware.”
“…I think a big part of our success with Katonah Architectural Hardware lies in the experience the buyer has coming into our by-appointment-only luxurious and exclusive showrooms, where the customer can touch, feel, and compare samples of varieties from all over the world. …But I think our ultimate ‘secret ingredients’ are our expertise, the process we’ve developed in specifying, packaging, and labeling our hardware for shipping, and the one-on-one attention we provide to each and every customer. In particular, I cannot say enough about Amanda Valvano, who’s been working with me for twenty-five years and runs our Manhattan and Katonah showrooms, or Susan Schmidt, who’s been operating our Chicago showroom since it opened. We couldn’t do it without them!”
“…We’ve supplied the hardware for a lot of the great houses in our local area, and worked for everyone you can imagine nationally and internationally, To drive this point home, I’ll even occasionally challenge a potential customer who’s looking for a reference to pick any three customers from the Forbes 400 - and I’ll provide references from whomever they choose. I’ve done the custom golf-themed hardware at Rancho San Lucas in Cabo that was designed by Greg Norman’s wife, the brass door handles that look like big fat cigars for Fuente cigars, and the door handles that look like Oscar awards that we donated to the Bedford Playhouse. We’ve done the hardware for a number of Channel stores around the world, the Celine store in Beverly Hills, and many Louis Vuitton stores. We’ve grown by word-of-mouth within the interior design and architecture world and, as a result, we get a substantial amount of work for projects in areas like Big Sky, Jackson Hole, and Park City, and a huge portion of our overall business from Florida and the Hamptons. …I’d like to think that my hard work, ingenuity, and integrity have been the driving force of this business - and I’m really proud of what we’ve I’ve accomplished building one of the preeminent high-end hardware companies in the nation, but I want to reiterate that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my most loyal and capable team.”
Among the projects Baren speaks about with particular pride is the Katonah Architectural Hardware collaboration with internationally acclaimed architect and designer Annabelle Selldorf. Through a manufacturing partnership and licensing agreement with her firm, Katonah Architectural Hardware produces the Vica Hardware Collection - owned by Annabelle Selldorf in the United States. The collection has been specified for a number of distinguished projects, including the recent expansion and renovation of the Frick Collection on Fifth Avenue, one of New York City’s most treasured cultural institutions. …Yet no recent commission has carried more personal resonance than the restoration and residential conversion of the Waldorf Astoria New York. Katonah Architectural Hardware supplied hardware for over 200 guest rooms and residential doors in the landmark project - and, coincidentally, the architect of record for that restoration was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where Andrew’s dad had worked. “…My father would have been incredibly proud! To think that a company that started as a small hardware store in Katonah would one day be contributing to one of New York City’s most iconic buildings is something I never could have imagined.”
“…And, all along, Erica has been my biggest fan, my best friend, and my biggest supporter. We’ve lived in the Katonah area our entire adult lives. Our two kids, Alex and Rebecca, went to the Katonah public schools. I was the President of the Chamber of Commerce when I was twenty-five years old and have remained active in the Chamber and in local affairs ever since. I coached little league baseball and Erica coached girls’ softball and basketball. …These days, our favorite thing in the world is getting to have our son’s two young sons and our daughter’s about-to-be-two-year-old twin daughters to stay at our house for the weekend and take them out to breakfast in town, and around to all the local parks and playgrounds and other local attractions in and around Katonah for all-day entertainment! We’re Katonah locals through and through …and we intend to stay here as long as we’re able!”
