Wright’s still doing it right after 72 years

Jimmy Stroup

H.W. Wright Co., better known as Wright’s, has been buying and

selling the biggest and smallest in hardware needs since it opened

its doors in 1932, making it the oldest surviving business in Costa

Mesa.

Conceived as a salvage and lumberyard by Harry Wright Sr., the

shop was built on the principles that were a part of the era in which

it was started.

“It was a good time for that kind of business because they reused

everything -- nails if they were straight,” said Jeff Wright,

grandson to Harry Sr. and the shop’s current owner.

Wright has owned the shop since he bought out his older brother

and father, Harry Wright Jr., in the mid-1990s, though he hasn’t

spent much time anyplace else since he was a teenager.

“I started working pretty much on a regular basis since I was 14,”

he said. “Worked through high school. More than I went to high

school, probably.”

And in the continuing tradition of minimal changes in ownership,

the store itself has done little in the way of remodeling. Recently,

Wright decided to move the counter to the opposite side of the store,

a change that brought many odd looks from longtime customers.

“People get used to things the way they are, especially around

here,” Wright said.

The store itself has come together as a measure of time and

circumstance, and not so much as part of any plan.

“Really, no one would start a business like this on purpose, from

scratch,” he said. “It’s evolved over the years.”

The diversity of the business is in its products, which vary from

large-scale machinery equipment sales to countless bins littered with

a selection of nuts, bolts, casters and cotter pins that could hardly

be found elsewhere.

“It’s a tricky mixture of driving a forklift and cutting steel ...

and the next minute you’re pulling little screws out for someone at

the counter. You have to be pretty versatile,” Wright said.

But the strange array of items is Wright’s strongest asset, one

that keeps people coming in on special trips long after they’ve moved

out of the area, customers Wright claims are his favorite to deal

with.

“It’s a pretty unique store,” Wright said. “There’s not a lot of

other businesses like this.”