Business

‘It’s Pretty Incredible’: New Canaan’s Steve Gaeta Marks 30 Years Owning C&H Auto

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Town resident Steve Gaeta was just a few years out of high school in 1987, when he started working as a mechanic at the auto repair shop at 186 Main St. 

At the time, Gaeta recalled, the downtown had nine gas stations with auto repair shops, and within a few years the co-owners of the New Canaan Chevron, located near the corner of Main and Maple Streets, in the shadow of then-recently demolished Center School—Charlie and Hank had renamed it ‘C&H Auto’ after themselves—decided to sell. “These guys were probably my age and they were looking for an opportunity to move on,” recalled Gaeta, a New Canaan firefighter who has lived here since the late-1980s and whose daughter graduated from New Canaan High School last year. “We took that opportunity, bought it.”

That was 30 years ago. “It’s pretty incredible,” Gaeta said of the milestone. “I couldn’t be happier.

Around Town

Did You Hear … ?

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We hear New Canaan native Bruce Pauley, retired last year to Vermont, has been putting on a timber frame addition to his house in the “Green Mountain State” that uses oak trees felled during Hurricanes Irene and Sandy in New Canaan (see photos above). He’s also using mostly storm-related white pine trees for the house’s exterior and the new addition is being called “The Storm Room.”

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A demolition crew on Wednesday came for the long-vacant and neglected home at 39 Richmond Hill Road—facing complaints from neighbors and the prospect of a blight citation. ***

The committee charged with studying public and private options for restoring the town-owned New Canaan Playhouse at the “50-yard-line” of Elm Street on Wednesday finalized a document that will see interested parties propose ways to purchase or otherwise acquire, renovate and operate the 1923-built brick building. The New Canaan Playhouse Committee is seeking to make a decision about the future of the cherished, cupola-topped structure by Thanksgiving. Town leaders say New Canaan is not in danger of losing the iconic building, though its capital needs are extensive.

Business

‘We Decided To Focus On What We Do Best’: Main Street’s C&H Auto Halts Gas Service To Concentrate on Maintenance, Repair

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The owner of a longtime full-service gas station and auto shop on Main Street said he is moving away from pumping gasoline to focus on a growing repair and maintenance business that more closely aligns with his customers’ needs. C&H Auto Owner Steve Gaeta said he’s proud to have continued the tradition of a full service station for the 26 years he’s owned the shop, and will miss the regular interaction with this customers—“That’s my time to get face time with them, I have enjoyed those times and I’m sad they’re gone”—yet newer generations of motorists are less interested in that type of service. “We are a small station and honestly, in trying to figure this out, we thought a great deal about replacing the gas pumps or taking them away, and at the end of the day it didn’t add up,” Gaeta said. “We decided to focus on what we do best, which is the service.”

Maintenance, repair and “concierge” services offered at the shop also will be expanded under C&H’s new direction, Gaeta said. Customers can expect to come in for oil and tune-ups as well as tire and air-conditioning service, alignment and front-end work, and the three-bay shop also plans to “handle the needs of customers with respect to buying and selling cars, transporting cars and storage of cars,” he said.

Business

‘He Is Part of the Fabric of This Town’: C&H Auto, New Canaan Bid Farewell to Leo Lopez

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Fourteen years later, C&H Automotive owner Steve Gaeta remembers clearly the day that Leo Lopez answered an ad to apply for a job at the Main Street gas station and repair shop. Lopez, an Ecuador native now 54 years old, had been in the United States just a few years when he filled out an application and returned a day or two later with 2-year-old Crystal, the youngest of his three kids, in tow. “He came back and said, ‘Sir, I really need this job,’ ” Gaeta, also a New Canaan firefighter, recalled Wednesday afternoon from the small office at C&H, a mainstay of downtown New Canaan that’s carved out a niche for superior customer service. “I hired him that day. I saw a good man that just wanted to work.