Knell's Door & Hardware - The Knell's Story

One hundred years is a long time!

If one thinks back 100 years he or she would see a society with no computers, Blackberrys, or televisions. The Montreal Wanderers were Stanley Cup champions while the Chicago White Sox hoisted baseball's top prize. Movies did not include sound, neither World War had even been a consideration and making headlines was a deadly natural disaster in California, where an earthquake claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people.

Meanwhile, in the small rural town of Kitchener, one man was opening the doors to a company that still stands today. In fact, Kitchener was not even the name of the city 100 years ago. Since it had a large population of German immigrants the town had been designated Berlin and was considered Canada's German capital.

However, with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 came anti-German sentiment and, with it, pressure for the city to change its name from Berlin. In 1916 following much debate and controversy, the name of the city was changed to Kitchener, after the British General Horatio Herbert Kitchener who won fame during the Boer War.

The increase in immigrants from Europe also contributed greatly to Kitchener's industrialization. Skilled tradesmen with industrial knowledge would help lead to a period of rapid growth and prosperity.

William Knell, a plumber by trade, noticed that there was tremendous difficulty in acquiring quality tools at this time in this newly developing area of western Ontario. Once William found quality tools, he noticed others too were in the same quandary and decided to buy extras and began selling them to other tradesmen in the city.

William Knell and Company Limited was born!

The company opened downtown and remained there in several different locations for the next 40 years operating a retail hardware store and plumbing and heating supply business and a contracting division before moving to its current location on Victoria Street South. When the company moved there in the early 1950s the site was on the outskirts of town. Now Victoria Street South is a bustling and vibrant area of the downtown core, with Knell's a fixture of the landscape.

The company has evolved and changed with the times over the past 100 years. The staff at Knell's joke that the company has sold just about everything in its existence, from horseshoes and radios to snow blowers and power tools.

Like most companies, growth was steady until the economic boom of the 1980s where growth really escalated. Then the recession of the 1990s hit and Knell's was forced to retrench and go back to what made it so successful. With the growth of big box stores and corporate giants such as Home Hardware, Rona Cashway, and even Canadian Tire, Knell's found itself squeezed out of the wholesale hardware sector.

"The company has truly evolved into what it is today," admits Robert Dippell, General Manager of Knell's. "We had to go back and specialize in what we were good at and concentrate on making the company successful in that area."

Once the company found its niche in the marketplace, growth has been increasing rapidly. The company has doubled in size since 1997 and shows no signs of letting up. The company has three locations, two in Kitchener and one in Elmira, boasting two highly reputable areas of expertise - a door and hardware division and an industrial products division.

Knell's Door and Hardware, established as a division in 2000, specializes in the commercial and residential door and hardware industries. It is located at 1248 Victoria Street North. It provides commercial and residential hardware and related products to contractors and institutions. Since it's inception it has become a leader in the supply of quality products and services in western Ontario.

The company supplies and installs an extensive arrangement of products including architectural and residential hardware, hollow metal doors and frames, wood doors, toilet partitions and lockers, automatic door operators, electronic access control, panel/mirror closet doors, and much more.

"We work very closely with architects and contractors in order to specify appropriate products to properly protect the security and safety of people and property," explains Dippell. "We also are increasingly providing supply and install products on our projects because we believe this added service really helps put our company ahead of its competition."

"We have access to thousands and thousands of products; we maintain an extensive stock of many quality hardware items and metal doors and frames but with our manufacturer relationships we can quickly supply an extensive range of special ordered products to our customers." says Dippell. "Whatever a customer needs we can acquire for them."

The company works hand-in-hand with the architects, contractors and designers, lending them their valuable knowledge and expertise with the myriad of products on the market, discussing which ones are best suited for each particular project.

The door and hardware division encompasses a staff of over 25 highly trained and competent individuals. Fabrication of hollow metal doors, frames and other metal work is done on site. The Victoria Street North location is approximately 25,000 sq. ft. and includes an office area, with almost 20,000 sq. ft. of fabrication shops and warehouse space.

"Our experienced staff includes Architectural Hardware Consultants (AHC) trained through the Door and Hardware Institute (DHI) and we have more being trained in this area. We try to pair our veterans with the younger generation coming up," says Dippell.

Knell's Door & Hardware has been a key component in some major local projects in the past few years. It is currently involved in a three-year project at St. Mary's General Hospital supplying and installing the hardware and electronic access control systems. Completion of the project is scheduled for 2007. Other major projects have included Research In Motion, Open Text, Luther Village, Accelerator Centre (U of W Research Park), WLU-Faculty of Social Work (St. Jeromes), Brick Brewing Company plus many more.

"When it comes to doors and hardware, the commercial marketplace is our bread and butter, yet, having said that we still do quite a bit of work in the residential and institutional sectors as well," admits Dippell.

The other main division within William Knell and Company Ltd. is its industrial supply division, Knell's Industrial. After years of selling everything under the sun, so to speak, the company eventually evolved into the distribution of consumable industrial supply products such as adhesives, cutting tools, hand and power tools, and abrasives, to name a few.

The company has focused its efforts on selling to mostly middle manufacturers or small to medium fabrication shops, but has relationships with many larger manufactures such as Toyota Manufacturing in Cambridge and Kuntz Electroplating of Kitchener.

"Our focus is on selling consumables to various manufactures," says Dippell. "We have also begun to focus more on residential contractors as potential customers. We already sell these contractors doors, locks, and other accessories as part of the door and hardware division, so why not sell them more?"

The industrial division is made up of a small three-person staff in Elmira as well as a 14-person staff at the company's 50-year-old Victoria Street South Location.

"We have plans underway for expansion. The door and hardware division is renovating to make more space for administration. As for the Victoria Street South location, it is an old building and we hope to move in the next couple of years when it becomes feasible. After 50 years, I think its time for a move," jokes Dippell.

In 1969, William Knell passed away but the company has since remained a part of the Knell family. The Knell family continues to have an ownership stake but has passed control of the company along to Dippell and his staff. William's grandson and great grandsons, however, are still employed in the company, marking the third and fourth generations of Knells to work for the company bearing their family name.

Although the company enters its centennial year in 2006, complacency is nowhere to be found. Dippell sees room for growth and expansion, whether it's through acquisitions or internal growth. He wants to continue to keep Knell's focused on remaining one of the top companies in western Ontario.

The company wants to offer more in customer related services, including a large showroom to better showcase their products as well as having an area for architects and other clients to test the products in a more hands-on environment. It is innovative ideas like these that have kept this 100-year-old company fresh to its customers and helped sustain it through world wars, depression, recession and everything else in between.

"Being a 100-year-old company can be both your biggest strength and your biggest weakness," says Dippell.

"It has been a strength because it has solidified our name with the public and has proven that we must be good at what we do to be in business for so long. On the other hand, the company has done so much in its history that many people aren't even sure what it is we do anymore. The wheels are in motion to change that and we have our future in focus, continuing on what we have started in the past decade."

Many things have changed in the past century. Technology has opened doors never before thought imaginable. Mankind has stepped foot on the moon, built structures that reach the heavens, made machines that are stronger and faster and the list goes on. Yet, no matter what age of society we live in, as consumers we all demand the same thing and that is value for our dollar, no matter how much that dollar can buy. This concept has not changed at William Knell and Company Ltd. and they have 100 years of proof to show for it.

(Note: Above story courtesy Jed Devenish from Ontario Construction News Oct. 2005)

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The following is from the Mon. Apr.7, 1969 edition of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record:

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In Business 63 Yrs., William Knell Dies

George William (Bill) Knell , president of William Knell and Co. Ltd., died suddenly Saturday from a heart attack at his home, RR 2, Waterloo. He was 87.

As founder and president of the wholesale hardware distributing firm, he was active in the retail and wholesale business for 63 years.

Sixty-three years ago this month Mr. Knell started a plumbing, heating and tinsmithing shop in a little brick building on Queen Street South.

He was 25 at the time, a hockey player for the old Berlin OHA team and the owner of a horse and carriage to ply his trade.

25 CENTS AN HOUR

His pay was 25 cents an hour as a plumber. He learned the trade at Philip Gies foundry and had amassed $1,000 working as a steamfitter in Calgary before hockey officials here called him back.

His original shop, which stood on the site of the old Kitchener Auditorium on Queen Street South, has long since been torn down. It is now a part of the Charles Street extension.

Mr. Knell parlayed the original $1,000 and his horse and carriage into what is today William Knell and Co. Ltd., 199 Victoria St. S., wholesale distributors of hardware, industrial and plumbing supplies and Nelco (Kitchener) Ltd., a hardware store at 45 King St. W., and a plumbing, heating and sheet metal business at 77 Edwin St.

In 1957 the hardware store and the Edwin Street business were taken over by his relatives and are now headed by his nephew, Carl Knell.

Mr. Knell was a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Knell.

His marriage to Norah Wilhelmina Merner, who survives, took place in Waterloo in 1915. He was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Bridgeport.

FUNERAL TUESDAY

Mr. Knell was a charter member of the Granite Club. He played with the Berlin hockey team from 1900 to 1903 and was a member of the Berlin OHA team in 1905. In 1907 he played for Berlin's first professional hockey team.

Besides his wife, Mr. Knell is survived by one daughter, Mrs. Ralph (Marie) Miller, RR 2, Waterloo; three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Two brothers and two sisters predeceased him.

The body is at his home, RR 2, Waterloo, where a private family service will be conducted Tuesday at 11 a.m. Rev. Ralph Huras, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Bridgeport, will officiate, assisted by Rev. S. J. Wittig. Interment will be in Mount Hope cemetery, Kitchener.

A memorial service will be held Tuesday at 4 p.m. at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Bridgeport.

Donations to the charity of one's choice may be made as expressions of sympathy.