Walking through the doors of the Carpenter Farm Supply Company feels like a step back in time. Signs advertising long-gone farm products hang on the walls, tiny glass bottles of Coca-Cola rest in crates, and regulars gather around the wood stove to swap tall tales.
Much remains the same from when the store was established in 1885, including the family that owns it. But this store isn’t a museum; it’s a business.
Much at the Carpenter Farm Supply store remains from when the family built it over a century ago. It is still a regular a meeting place for people who sit around a wood stove to tell tall tales. “Lots of lies have been told,” says Dale Carpenter Jr. “Everyone has caught the largest fish.”
“We’re open every morning at eight o’clock except Sunday. And I mean, this old historic framework is housing a business that lives and breathes every day. It’s our hope that we can keep it breathing for a long time,” said Dale Carpenter, who owns the store with his brother Joel, and expects his son, Dale Jr., to take over from him one day.
Rooted in Cary’s agricultural past, the store has evolved over the years to meet the needs of its changing clientele. Now in its second century, the store and its owners are facing a major change happening right outside their doors.
The two-story section of the store was added in 1916, when trains delivered brick for its construction. The second floor once housed a barbershop, says Dale Carpenter, but now serves as storage.
A unique place
In the last 20 years, the store has shifted from catering to tobacco farmers to keeping suburban homeowners supplied with bedding plants and gardening equipment. For owners of pot-bellied pigs or backyard fowl, Carpenter Farm Supply is the place to stock up on supplies.
“Our main thing that no one else has is our livestock feed,” said Dale Carpenter Jr., explaining that feed and equipment for urban chickens are some of their top-selling items.
The feed and fertilizer storage building across the street was built in 1880, and originally served the community as a farmer’s cooperative and meeting hall. A garage, warehouse and front porch were added in the 1950s.
The store will also order whatever a customer wants, he says, from cilantro seed to earthworm chow.
“We try to offer person-to-person help,” said Dale Carpenter. “Newcomers that are not used to our soil types and our weather patterns, they will always ask you about planting procedures, fertilization, tending to their yards and their garden.”
Dale Carpenter, right, makes a key for longtime friend and neighbor Lee Phillips, owner of the original Carpenter home and a regular visitor to the store. “If I don’t see Lee every day, there’s a problem,” Carpenter says.
Whether from another part of the country or another part of the world, customers benefit from the Carpenter family’s deep knowledge of what it takes to grow things here. They will also share tips on plumbing, electrical work and chainsaw repairs.
“There’s a personable, human contact, not just what you get from a small business — a family owned small business — but from a business that’s been in your community long before you were,” said Lori Bush, a member of the Cary Town Council and a store patron.
“I’m often surprised at how many people don’t know about Carpenter Farm Supply and its unique place, not just in our history, but in our community.”
Dale Carpenter, who owns the store with his brother Joel, has been working there since he was 9 or 10 years old. “He runs the store in a way that no one else can, and that includes me. His inventory is all up here,” says his son, Dale Jr., tapping his head.
Some history
Built by William Henry Carpenter, the current owners’ great-grandfather, the rambling store includes the original one-story frame structure and a two-story brick section from 1916.
“I started helping out here when I was a kid, after school, doing little things in here, putting inventory on the shelves,” said Dale Carpenter. “Back then all the bottled drinks were returnable bottles. You had to make sure you had the correct bottles in the correct crates for the vendors when they would come to get them. That was one of my jobs.”
He took over the running of the store in 1982, when he left college. His brother Joel came on board when he graduated a few years later.
Dale Carpenter Jr. and his brother-in-law, Jordan Green, stock the Carpenter warehouse with livestock feed. From chicken scratch to earthworm chow, the store can get whatever the customer wants.
In 2000, the Carpenter Historic District was entered into the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. Along with the Carpenter Farm Supply Company and its warehouse across the street, the historic district includes roughly two dozen buildings on a few hundred acres surrounding the intersection of Carpenter Upchurch and Morrisville Carpenter roads.
“The town of Cary was a farming community for the longest time, and the business of that farming community, a lot of it took place around that Carpenter Farm Supply store,” said Jennifer Robinson, a Cary Town Council member.
“We were trying to figure out how we could make sure future generations would be able to see a glimpse of what Cary was in its original form.”
Charles Ferrell, Dale Carpenter’s cousin, enjoys a sandwich and a Coke while watching the world pass by through the storefront window. Ferrell is a fixture at the store, often greeting customers as they come through the door.
Down the road
The town came up with the 2005 Carpenter Community Plan and a vision “to revitalize the Carpenter crossroads area as a lively, unique historical and cultural destination.”
Vital to that plan is the current construction to realign and widen Morrisville Carpenter Road, linking it to Carpenter Fire Station Road. When the $36.2 million project is complete in 2022, Morrisville Carpenter Road will be a four-lane highway carrying drivers from west Cary all the way to the airport.
By diverting through traffic, the town hopes to preserve the more rural feel of the historic district. And while Dale and Joel Carpenter appreciate the town’s efforts, they worry about plans to close the rail crossing in front of their store.
The railroad crossing in front of Carpenter Farm Supply on Morrisville Carpenter Road is scheduled to be closed in 2022, as part of a construction project to realign and widen Morrisville Carpenter Road.
“The town is going to close this intersection here, Morrisville Carpenter at the railroad,” said Joel Carpenter. “We’re really concerned, because that’s been the major artery for us for many, many years coming off of 55.”
Drivers on N.C. 55 will still be able to see the store from the road, but with the closing of the railroad crossing, the direct route to the business will disappear. The Town of Cary plans extensive signage directing people to the historic district and the Carpenter Farm Supply Company.
One of several resident cats naps outside the Carpenter Farm Supply warehouse.
Established clients will be able to get to the store, the owners say, but new customers might have more difficulty. And whether they’re in the market for chicken feed or a souvenir T-shirt, those folks need to find the store, or it won’t survive for another 100 years.
“It’s a working business, but we’re also kind of a tourist attraction, too,” said Dale Carpenter Jr. “People from out of town — a lot of people like to come see this old store in the middle of suburban Cary.”
Construction on Carpenter Fire Station Road will link it to Morrisville Carpenter Road by 2022, creating a four-lane highway from Amberly in west Cary all the way to the airport.
Wonderful story about the Carpenter Farm Store. I have done a painting of the store.
Many years ago when our children were very young, on weekends we’d drive the country roads around the Cary area. Our favorite stop was this old Carpenter Store. As our children grew older, we’d take even more country roads trips on weekends. Our children enjoyed the old Country Store where they were able to buy bubble gum, ice cream cones, etc. They would enjoy their visits, looking forward to spending their hard earned pennies . As they got older their money went to dollar their bills, but, still looked forward to going to The Old Country Store to show there friends. They were able to purchase pretty much what they looked forward to by cutting grass and other chores they’d do in our neighborhood.
We live in Texas now, but, oh, how I miss dropping by your wonderful old store that holds so many wonderful memories for so many folks. Not only to my family, but all the thousand of folks that visited. Thank you for keeping this old store in good repair for the ‘new generations’ of children to buy their bubble gum and ice cream.
I have stopped by here to buy seeds and even pipe covering. They have it all-somewhere!
Sometimes they have to climb a ladder to get what you want、After they dust it off, you can buy it!
Perfect place to look for a part for an old appliance or tool.
I love this store!! It is quaint and has an old world charm to it. I drive past the side road in front of the store on my way to my sisters house in the subdivision behind it countless times and every time I think, wow this place is so cute! I have bought plants which the store displays outside. Without my asking them, they put the pots in a cardboard box so that the potted plants would not create a mess in my car, which was very thoughtful of them!
Hopefully they do not lose any business due to the construction! But I will find a way to their store 🙂