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Steve Rose, who owns and operates Heritage Saw & Mower in Mebane, holds an Ambrogio Robot mower that his company sells along with a selection of battery-operated and gas-powered equipment.
Steve Rose, who owns and operates Heritage Saw & Mower in Mebane, holds an Ambrogio Robot mower that his company sells along with a selection of battery-operated and gas-powered equipment.
Step inside Heritage Saw & Mower in Mebane and you might find Steven Rose in his showroom, touting the benefits of the state-of-the-art, gas-powered mowers and other lawn and garden equipment he sells. Not interested in the traditional tools? Rose can unroll an encyclopedic knowledge of push-button, programmable, battery-powered equipment. You may also catch him behind the counter, arms deep in a small engine, or diagnosing a problematic weed whacker.
What you won’t find him doing is mowing the lawn of his business at 115 Hoover Road. Rose leaves that job to his robot. Or is it a mow-bot? Whatever you call it, the outdoor, toothy distant cousin of the Roomba quietly rolls along for hours, working around obstacles, turning, backing up, and munching every blade of grass it encounters. And Rose loves it.
“I don’t like mowing grass much really,” he said. “I see lawnmowers all day long. I sell them all day long. I don’t want to go home and look at a lawnmower. So, to me it’s appealing. I have a 2-year-old daughter. I don’t want to spend time on the lawnmower, I want to spend time with my wife and daughter. So, there’s a time issue. If I don’t have to spend an hour or two hours a week mowing the grass, if the robots doing it for me, then I have just bought time off. That’s more valuable to me than time worked. And, it’s cool. Look at that thing. It’s out there mowing the grass right now.”
For 16 years, Rose repaired outdoor lawn equipment under the umbrella of a lawn and garden shop in downtown Durham. As the cost of property in the city spiked, he began looking for another method for continuing his repair business. Rose originally started Heritage Saw & Mower in 2018, specializing in pickup and delivery, along with repair of outdoor equipment. But he had always been intrigued with the potential of selling equipment.
In 2021, he purchased a building from which to operate his business in Mebane, and in January of this year, Rose opened for business. Not one to sit back and watch grass grow, and always one keen to trends in the industry, Heritage Saw & Mower made the shift to specialize in battery-powered equipment for walk-behind and riding mowers, and later became the first in the area to sell and install the Ambrogio Robotic mowers.
“We did a lot of market research and tried to figure out who was selling what and where,” Rose said. “We didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes and vice versa. We didn’t want that to happen to us. So, I called some people that I knew in the distribution business and said, ‘Here’s what I’m doing, what can we make happen?’ and immediately they got me stocked up with inventory, and they started selling.”
Rose’s decision to offer more battery-powered equipment came after noticing big-box retailers — like Lowe’s Home Improvement and Home Depot — had begun drastically reducing its inventory of gas-powered, walk-behind mowers and hand-held lawn equipment in favor of the battery-powered lines. This concerned Rose, as much of his business was centered around maintaining and repairing small gas engines. An equipment sales rep gave Rose some blunt advice that got him thinking differently.
“He said, ‘Steve, you better get on the wagon, or you’re gonna watch it go by.’ And I heard what he was saying.”
Heritage Saw & Mower couldn’t compete with the larger companies selling battery-powered mowers to homeowners, so he turned his attention to selling commercial mowers to landscaping and mowing businesses.
“For the folks that are out there cutting 20, 30 yards a day,” Rose said. “We got into some commercial equipment, and I got really heavy into the Greenworks brand. Greenworks has several different divisions. We handle the Greenworks commercial, which is the higher-end equipment. The 82-volt stuff. The good stuff.”
Even though Rose recognized the direction he needed to go with his business, he wasn’t right away sold on the battery-powered machines. He believed the battery-fueled equipment would be limited, run out of their charge in the middle of a job, and not do all the things gas-powered lawn gear does.
“And it dawned on me, if I’m out using a gas trimmer, if it quits running, that’s usually because it’s out of gas. So what do I do? Add more gas. If I’m using a battery-powered tool and it goes dead, I’m just going to put another battery in. The truth is, most people don’t run out of battery. Everybody comes in they say, ‘How long does the battery last,’ and I always say, ‘Longer than you do.’ It’ll it’ll last longer than you’re probably wanting to be out there in the heat.”
Rose said he knew he was onto something when one of his longtime customers came by his shop to see if he could fix her mower. Even though she was elderly, she mowed her yard, although she needed her husband to start the mower. His health had declined, and the woman was unable to get her mower to crank. So, believing the mower needed repairing, she brought it in to Rose, who was quickly able to start the woman’s mower.
Sensing this could be a regular issue for the woman, Rose told her he might have a solution to the challenge. He showed her a battery-powered mower, told her to push back a lever and then push a button.
“When that electric motor started, I saw her eyes just light up with joy,” Rose said. “I knew right then and there I was on to something. It had its particular customer. Is it for everyone? No. But for a majority, yes. And you’re seeing more and more people go to it. It’s not because it’s more powerful. It’s not because it’s quiet, or even because it’s green. It’s because it’s easy to use.”
Rose has spent much of his life tinkering with engines, large and small, to see how they work. His father was an electrical engineer working with lasers, but would also fix the family’s small appliances, like the coffee maker, to save money. As a kid, he closely followed his father, watching everything he did, and helping any way he could. Including mowing the grass.
Rose credits his dad for giving him his mechanical talents, and credits a bike shop owner named Jack Duncan for his business knowledge.
When he was just entering his teen years, Rose was outside his house where he had completely disassembled the engine of his mini-bike. A young man who worked at the bicycle shop up the street walked by on his lunch break and commented that Rose would never get the engine back together. Challenge accepted.
By the time the young man passed by on his way back from lunch, Rose was riding around on his mini-bike. Impressed, the man returned to work and told the bike shop’s owner — Jack Duncan — about Rose, including that he should give the boy a job.
What young Rose learned working there, along with the gratitude he had for the shop’s owner, has continued to impact his business and business model. In fact, the name of the bike shop was Heritage Bike Shop.
Heritage Saw & Mower has a staff of four, including its owner. Rose said the most difficult part of running his business is making time to properly train and mentor his employees to ensure a certain level of professionalism is maintained. He said he wants each customer to feel comfortable coming into his shop, whether it’s to have equipment repaired or to purchase something new. He also wanted to make sure his business location wouldn’t become a sort of graveyard for broken and forgotten mowers.
“I promised the City of Mebane, and they were very reluctant to change my zoning because they didn’t want it to be like a lawnmower junkyard that would be an eyesore,” Rose said. “I painted a picture of this place to the city council, and I said, ‘I promise it’s going to be like this.’ And they wrote conditions in there that it better be and I think we’ve more than exceeded their expectations.”
Rose added that while the process for rezoning his property wasn’t easy, “the City of Mebane are some of the finest folks to work with and everyone I dealt with was awesome.”
Rose said his business has stayed busy, whether it’s doing repairs, selling equipment, or learning how to properly use and maintain the Ambrogio Robotics lawnmowers, which is one place where he believes his market will continue to grow. That growth has required a major time and financial investment from Rose. And it’s put having a millennial on staff into a whole new light.
“He was able to pick up the phone and there’s an app that you use to set the robot up,” Rose said. “I didn’t have to tell him very much. I basically explained the parameters and before I was done talking, he had it done. There’s something about that generation. They’re not afraid to touch the phone and push things.”
Rose said his business’ focus is always on meeting the needs of customers, and it will continue to repair and maintain gas-powered equipment alongside the battery-powered machines. But he admits to geeking out a bit over the robot mowers.
“I think it’s something exciting. Is it for everyone? No. I have people who enjoy mowing the grass. It’s therapy. I get it. Robots are not for people who enjoy cutting the grass. Robots are for people that don’t have the time or just want a nice lawn and don’t want to pay somebody a lot of money every week. Again, we don’t want to put anybody out of business trying to earn money mowing grass. We’re just really excited about it. I’m excited to see the technology get here. I’m excited to see it evolve a little bit. And I’m starting to see some fast followers.”
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