Longtime local auto shop sold to new owner | Business

Kathryn van der Pol mentioned she and her partner, Sybren, experienced acquired offers to offer their community auto store to serious estate builders, but they declined since they needed the historic Garden Oaks enterprise to remain.

The longtime proprietors of Liberty Hoepfl Garage, 4610 N. Shepherd Dr., sooner or later obtained an give they couldn’t refuse, for the reason that it came from a persistent buyer who has worked in the automotive repair service marketplace and pledged to go on the shop’s longstanding tradition of services to the neighborhood.

The organization was bought in late September to Heights resident Matthew Schwab, who strategies to rebrand it as Clutch Automotive North Shepherd to match his two affiliated outlets in Friendswood and on Dairy Ashford Highway. Kathryn van der Pol reported she and her spouse, who acquired Liberty Hoepfl Garage from the initial operator in 2004, even now personal the property and will remain energetic in the neighborhood and the North Shepherd thoroughfare.

“We turned him absent a few instances. We weren’t all set,” van der Pol said. “But we thought, ‘Well, he definitely wishes to do it. He wants to maintain the legacy of what we built in this article.’ ”

Schwab reported his enterprise focused Liberty Hoepfl Garage, which initial opened much more than 75 a long time back as Adolf Hoepfl & Son Garage, mainly because it’s been a successful and trustworthy compact company that he wants to steward. And even while he will be modifying the name in the coming months or months, he stated consumers will go on to see the names and influences of the two the Hoepfl family members and the van der Pols, who rebranded the store two many years in the past and gave it a “liberty” theme with red, white and blue decorations and by featuring absolutely free copies of the U.S. Structure to consumers.

Schwab explained he also programs to retain the identical staff and menu of solutions whilst modernizing how the store operates. For case in point, Clutch Automotive options to acquire assistance appointments on the web and will converse with clients via text message when servicing their autos.

“It’s going to be the exact same faces, the very same companies and really the same honesty and integrity that Kathryn and Sybren carried,” Schwab said. “You’ll have the exact same honesty, integrity and excellent of operate. Those people will be the issues that say the exact same, with a minimal bit newer systems and processes. We’ll consider pictures of the vehicle and text them to shoppers. They can approve and decrease products and services on their cell cellphone, can spend on their mobile phone. Every thing will be very world wide web-based mostly.”

In a corresponding transfer to offering the automobile shop, the van der Pols are in the course of action of getting an occasion heart and RV park in Washington County that will be referred to as Texas Heritage RV Park. The few also is attempting to start a constitution faculty termed Heritage Classical Academy.

Kathryn, who is the president of the North Shepherd Local community Alliance, reported she and Sybren will spend half their time in Washington County and the other 50 percent at their property in Inwood Forest, wherever they can continue to keep tabs on the in-the-will work university, the vehicle shop and other enterprises on North Shepherd.

“I’ll still be a residence proprietor (on Shepherd), so I continue to have a stake in this community, a large stake,” she claimed. “But it probably is the opportunity for us to now switch gears a minimal bit and emphasis extra on the school and travel a small little bit. I want to teach, I’m looking ahead to executing that, and we’re going to test to assistance other automotive stores.”