Hubbard’s Auto Repair Shop closes: Retirement, and a hand-off to new owner

This week, the announcement was official: George Hubbard, who’s run the repair shop on Jaspa Road for 20 years, and worked on the Island for 27 more, is now retired.

The joy in his voice, as he spoke to a reporter on the phone, was unmistakable. “It was time,” he said. “It’s been a good run, and now it’s time to do something else.”

The official date was Thursday, July 23, and as he celebrated his transition to a more relaxed way of life, he was touched that many longtime customers, who had become friends, had stopped by to wish him well.

What’s he looking forward to? “More time with my family, especially my grandchildren,” he said.

After working six days a week, he’s going to enjoy a much less demanding schedule. With two of his four daughters living on the Island, he’ll be glad to spend more time enjoying his family’s activities. “I have four grandsons in school on the Island, and I’ll be able to go to their school plays, and basketball games, without worrying about getting out of the shop in time.”

He’s worked on Shelter Island for 47 years, commuting from Greenport. In a recent interview with Reporter Editor Ambrose Clancy, he described the routine he kept to meet his obligations to work and family.

At 7:15 a.m., every Monday through Saturday, he’d awaken in the home in Greenport he shares with his wife Kathleen, a teacher’s aide at Greenport School. The house was built by his grandfather in the 1920s, and it’s where Mr. Hubbard has lived his whole life.

For years, before his mother passed away in 2023, Mr. Hubbard would go first thing in the morning to her place to check in, to ask how her night had gone and if she needed anything. He kept the morning ritual and memories of his mother by rising at the same time, going to the 7-Eleven for a Nestle’s Chocolate Milk and a copy of Newsday. He’d catch an early North Ferry boat and read the paper during the crossing.

At a little past 8, he’d open Hubbard’s Repair Shop, officially listed as being on North Ferry Road, but it’s down the block on Jaspa Road, part of a lot that contains the Shelter Island Brewery, Maria’s Kitchen and the Repair Shop. The owner of the Kitchen, Maria Schultheis, has bought the lot and identified a mechanic who has a shop in Calverton to take over the car repair business in August, he said.

Through the years, Mr. Hubbard worked by himself, with his nephew Cliff Harris, a New York City firefighter, lending a hand at times. Opening up Monday through Saturday, the first task of the day was turning on the air compressor that runs the power tools, which he kept off all night so the neighbors’ sleep wasn’t disturbed by the sound.

Then it was a daily round of New York State inspections, oil changes, repairs and work on tires. “Lots of tires,” he added, with a smile.

There are few people who have such deep roots on both sides of the bay. His father, George Sr., owned a Shell station and garage in Greenport in the days when every gas station had spaces for a mechanic on duty, spaces now mostly occupied by mini-marts.

He and Kathleen raised their four daughters in Greenport Village — Jessica and Lauren live on the Island now with their families — and he was involved in Village politics for years. After serving 16 years on the Village Board, eight of those as mayor, he lost the mayoralty in March 2023 in a three-way race; he and Rich Vandenburgh were defeated by Kevin Stuessi.

“It was hard to swallow at first,” he told Mr. Clancy, speaking about the election. “I’m proud of what we accomplished,” adding that during his administration taxes were kept low, and money was found from other sources to fund services. “But the new guy has raised taxes.”

Looking back over his career, he said, “I started at age 12, working for my father on scooters and go-karts. I learned from him and by doing.”

The desire to open his own auto repair shop never left him, even after his father sold the Greenport station and he began taking the ferry in 1979 to the Island to work for King Terra Marine, constructing bulkheads, docks and swimming pools.

A bear for work, he also had a part-time job with Hap Bowditch’s repair operation on Midway Road starting in 1981, eventually working full-time.

Then, in 2006, Mr. Hubbard decided to be his own boss, buying the vacant Auto Tech building on Jaspa Road from Bill Southwick, and went out on his own.

He’s kept a loyal customer base on the Island throughout the years, even as the industry has changed. Speaking about car repairs, he said, “It’s mostly dealers now who do the work,” noting long-time warranties from dealerships can be up to 10 years and/or 100,000 miles. Plus, cars and the things that make them run “have become so complicated,” he said, that dealerships will always have an edge over the independent shops.

One example of how the industry as a whole and the Island housing situation has changed on Shelter Island is that his nephew David Neese, who has a passion for cars, worked at the shop for a while, but after graduating with a degree in computer science, found a job in that profession in Ohio.

“There was no future here doing this, and finding housing was impossible,” Mr. Hubbard said.

But he was able to make it work, keeping customers coming back because of the quality of his service, getting to know them on a first-name basis, and building friendships. “I love at Christmas when customers would come in with cookies.”

He and Kathleen took their first vacation in nine years after the Greenport election, a cruise to the Caribbean. In the near future, he sees a brief family trip to the Jersey shore, but the prospect of spending more time here with his grandchildren, eight boys and one girl, will bring him back. “That’s something I’m really looking forward to.”