CARIBOU, Maine — In May of 1999, in a small 20- by 40-foot rental building next to Reno’s Restaurant on Sweden Street in Caribou, Haney’s Building Specialties was started by 24-year-old Troy Haney. The business was built to offer kitchen & bath cabinetry, counter tops, windows & doors and a few other miscellaneous items. Haney’s started with a semi trailer as a warehouse and a pickup and trailer to do delivery and away they went.
After one year, they quickly outgrew the space and built a new location at 236 Van Buren Road in which the building had a new 40- by 46-foot showroom and a 30- by 48-foot warehouse and a delivery truck was added. The new location offered more products to design interior and exterior spaces adding flooring, siding, roofing and more. More importantly Haney’s started adding people to their team and built a network of local contractors that partnered to then also install things they sold.
From there, every few years, additional warehouses and retail space has been added to continue to accommodate growth. One of Haney’s major strategies has been to continue to evolve to what the local market has needed and they went through the housing boom in the early to mid 2000’s selling custom built modular homes, in the later part of the 2000’s when the housing market crashed, Haney’s decided to build condos in Presque Isle to meet the needs of that local market. Also in the mid 2000’s Haney’s added a team of carpenters to work full time due to the challenges of finding enough local contractors to keep up with their demand. Over the last 16-17 years Haney’s has been involved in building over 100 homes all over the County from Frenchville to Houlton and 1000’s of different renovation projects.
2017 was another pivotal shift in Haney’s history as there had been a sharp decline over the years in building material stores in the area. Stores like Agway, PL Willey, MPG and others had closed their businesses while several other smaller local shops had been bought out. At that point Haney’s started selling hardware and building supplies at their store partnering with a company called Emery Waterhouse, which was known as Trustworthy Hardware Stores supplier. Emery would later be merged into the ACE Hardware company which provided more selection and better pricing so they could compete with box stores and online companies. Haney’s started with one aisle of frequently used products to see if local consumers would support such an endeavor and they did. Soon more aisles and departments were added to cover all the bases. Plumbing, Electrical, fasteners, paint, tools, lawn & garden and more were added.
In spring of 2018, Haney’s built its first greenhouse and offered plants from Jolly Farmer out of Woodstock, New Brunswick. Again as several local greenhouses/garden centers like Phil’s Florist and MPG had closed there was a need that Haney’s team decided to fill and add to what they were doing.
After 21 years in business Haney’s Building Specialties, was going through its biggest change yet as they became Haney’s Home Farm & Garden. The name change needed to happen to really encompass everything they had become. In February of 2020, it was announced that Aroostook Milling of Houlton was closing its Presque Isle satellite feed store and Haney’s was able to strike a deal to add it to their business in Caribou to continue to provide Central and Northern Aroostook County a place to by local grown and produced farm feeds of all types. The year 2020 saw the opening of a second seasonal garden center at the Aroostook Centre Mall in Presque Isle which offered a full line up of all of their gardening supplies and plants and a lumber yard was added to the Caribou store.
Over the years Haney’s has grown to have over 5,000 square feet of retail space, over 8,000 square feet of warehouse space, and over 6,000 square feet of outdoor garden center space for customers to shop at in Caribou. Most importantly over the years of growth, owner Troy Haney attributes the success of the company to all of the many great employees that have joined the team over the years. Store manager and partner of Haney’s, Dan Haines had been with the company through much of this growth over the past 14 years and just three years ago, Haney’s daughter Kirsten Godin joined the team and is helping lead the company into what the next 25 years will bring. Haney also points out that every team member has had and will continue to be the backbone of the company as the people are what makes the difference for our customers.
Saturday, May 18th will be a day of celebration at Haney’s store and a way to say thank you to the community for everyone’s support over the past 25 years. They invite everyone to stop by from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and grab a free tomato plant from the greenhouse, sign up for some great door prizes, meet over 10 factory representatives for products they sell, save money on some really crazy deals and huge discounts and have a good time enjoying music, a food truck, a bounce house and more. Check out the full details at their website www.shophaneys.com
After 25 years as owner, Troy Haney is still optimistic and is looking forward to what the next chapter of Haney’s will be as they are working towards future expansions and continuing growth thanks to the support of the local community.
