HANOVER — After 87 years, one of the oldest businesses in Hanover, Walt & Ernie’s Barbershop, will move across Main Street in response to the planned demolition of the shop’s current building.
After some nearby construction cools down in about a month, the shop will move to 42 South Main St., behind Ledyard National Bank.
More than 150 customers have covered a wall of the old shop with their signatures in gratitude of the shop, with some dating back to the ’50s and ’60s.
Many of the signatures also give thanks to the current owner, Carol Eastman. Eastman, a Windsor resident, started cutting hair at the shop in 1992, after she went to cosmetology school in Claremont and West Lebanon.
“I think I’m gonna miss, you know, this atmosphere of the old time barbershop, but I will keep going to Carol,” said Chris Brien, 58, of Norwich, who went to the since-shuttered Whitcomb High School in Bethel and has gotten his hair cut with Eastman since he moved back to the area in 2009.
“It’s really an institution,” Brien said. “I mean, my uncles got their hair cut here, my father-in-law, a lot of family — generations.”
Eastman gave Brien’s uncle, Jim Downey, his last haircut while he was in hospice.
“She gets close to people,” Brien said.
Walter Chase and Ernie DesRoche opened the barbershop in the lobby of the Hanover Inn in 1903 before moving to the Nugget Alley location in 1938. Ownership passed through a couple more hands, and Eastman took over in 2022.
That same year, Eastman learned through a customer that the shop would eventually be torn down. “I was sick to my stomach,” Eastman said. Her landlord told her shortly thereafter that he was beginning to form construction plans.
The building must be torn down as the 100-year-old structure is an “an old, leaky building, for lack of a better description,” said Jon Livadas, the property owner. Livadas is developing a $7.5 million, 44-unit residential building with construction slated to begin next April and be completed in late 2027.
The front building, which houses Dirt Cowboy Cafe, Murphy’s on the Green and Simon Pearce, will remain intact. And the back building, which houses Walt & Ernie’s and Tuk Tuk, will be demolished and rebuilt, prompting them to relocate in the meantime.
“You’ve got a lot of old buildings in town that are, I think, over time, either going to be replaced or heavily overhauled,” said Julia Griffin, who was Hanover’s town manager for 26 years before retiring in 2022.
With the uncertainty around construction — how long it would last and whether there would be retail units — Eastman began looking for other properties, and eventually found one in early 2023.
In addition to the difficulty of small business in the time of Amazon, the constant construction downtown is making it more chaotic to be one of the remaining brick and mortar shops in Hanover, Griffin said.
“And with all of this construction, both new and renovation, it’s so disruptive — especially for the smaller businesses that typically don’t own their own space,” Griffin added.
While waiting for surrounding construction of Ledyard Park to finish, Eastman is putting final touches on the new space, aiming to keep the same classic atmosphere of the current building.
“Everything’s gonna look the same,” Eastman said. “You’re just gonna walk in a different direction.”
Hanover’s zoning ordinance, however, won’t allow the classic red, white and blue barbershop pole to spin or emit light outside the new location. Eastman intends to seek a variance from the town to keep the pole running.
Because of Eastman’s care and work ethic, the shop’s family of customers plan to follow her across Main Street. After undergoing carpal tunnel syndrome surgery in 2023, Eastman was told to take 10 days off, but “the rebel” in her came back three days later.
“The chair is where I need to be,” she said. “These people are my family.”
Andy Glover, a 1972 Hanover High School graduate, followed his father, Paul, who started getting his hair cut at Walt & Ernie’s as a Dartmouth student in the 1940s.
Andy recently moved back to Hanover from Austin, Texas, though he would often get his hair cut when he visited his family in Hanover.
Now, three generations of the Glover family have passed through, as Andy’s wife, brother and son have been going to Eastman.
“I see neighbors, I see people whose kids went to school with my kids at (Bernice A. Ray School),” said Edward Baker, who lives in Hanover and has been getting his haircut along with his stepfather at Walt & Ernie’s since the ’80s. “There’s a long tradition.”
“I think we’ve grown accustomed to this space,” said Baker. “It has a certain nostalgic aura for us. But I’ve looked at the new space, it looks wonderful and I believe that the traditions will carry on.”
“We’re excited to kind of change with the times, I suppose,” Baker said.
Eastman, 55, is “not ready to retire.” She wants to go at least 13 more years, when the shop hits its 100-year anniversary.
“But I will have tears when I lock the door,” Eastman said.