Poe’s Rentals closes Coral Gables location after 64 years

June 29th, 2012

Poe's Rental Hardware

Wendy Poe Whitmire, owner of Poe's Rental Hardware, holds one of the last items not sold or auctioned off. Photo by Carl Juste / The Miami Herald

Steve Lipson has been a customer at Poe’s Rentals for more than 50 years. As an advertising photographer, he visits the long-standing hardware store in Coral Gables often, usually to rent a generator for a location shoot. But when he was younger, he used the store’s products for a less profitable purpose.

“When I was about 14 years old, Jeff Apple —who actually produced In the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood — a few other friends and I saved up our money and went to Poe’s to buy an engine to make chain-driven go-carts,” he recalled. Two weeks later, they had fashioned a vehicle ready for the neighborhood streets.

After Friday (June 29), Lipson and the other customers who have visited the store for 64 years will need to shop elsewhere. Owners and sisters Wendy Poe Whitmire and Roxanne Poe will close the neighborhood landmark on Le Jeune Road and U.S. 1. Two other locations will remain open.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/27/2873647/poes-rentals-closes-coral-gables.html#storylink=cpy