When Craig Ecelbarger started a 10-year franchise agreement for The Recreational Warehouse location in Fort Myers, Florida, his family was looking for a simpler life. After serving as regional manager for Rec Warehouses across western and southern Florida, Ecelbarger was ready to oversee just one store. Like most small-business owners, he got more than he bargained for.
“In a way, it was a difficult life, but it wasn’t complicated,” Ecelbarger says. “We knew what we did every day.” This year marks his 49th in the hot tub industry and a momentous one as he sold the company to Watson’s this March.
As a high schooler, Ecelbarger took a job at the original Recreational Warehouse in North Tonawanda, New York, in 1976. As the company expanded to Florida, he moved with it. In 1996, when it came time to “hang out our own shingle,” as Ecelbarger puts it, a franchise arrangement was made. “It was a sweetheart deal for me,” Ecelbarger says. When the 10-year agreement was up, the deal was made even sweeter. “These people, who are my friends, basically said, ‘You’ve paid enough.’ ”
Ecelbarger describes himself as a “store guy.”
“I loved what happened within the four walls of the store and everything that you can control,” he says. “The different pieces, the training and the customers — loved all that.”
He was happy with having those four walls, and for 16 years, The Recreational Warehouse served Fort Myers from a single store. But then came the recession. “It was as horrible as can be,” Ecelbarger says. After a grim meeting with his accountant, he knew they had to do something drastic to survive.
“We opened our Naples store in a very defensive way,” Ecelbarger says. “I didn’t really want to do it, but we simply had to have more revenue. We had to have more sales. And lo and behold, it worked.”
As the economy improved, Ecelbarger saw a hole in the market and opened a third store in Port Charlotte in 2017. “Everybody that lives within our marketing is less than a half an hour from one of our stores, which is what we wanted to do,” Ecelbarger says.
Marketing heavily was a business strategy engrained in Ecelbarger going back to his days in New York, and it was a philosophy he carried into his business.
“In Fort Myers, Florida, your advertising dollar can go a long way,” Ecelbarger says. “If you run enough TV spots, which we do, and you run enough digital impressions, which we do, and some direct mail and some other things, you can get your message out to the whole populace.”
And it’s worked. The Recreational Warehouse is a two-time winner of the Hot Spring Spas Locksin Thompson Award, which is akin to the dealer of the year. And while it’s not awarded based solely on sales volume, it plays a big role.
“They dominated the market in their major categories in volume and earnings,” says Eric Mueller, CEO of Watson’s. “In volume and earnings, they were consistent. They had a tremendous management team in place, and they were in markets we found attractive.”
While Ecelbarger’s marketing strategy has changed, his dedication hasn’t. “For guys that are pretty old like me that came up in the days of newspaper, radio and TV, digital was so hard,” he says. “And it’s still so hard because it’s never-ending. I made up my mind 10 years ago that I couldn’t let it beat me. It’s essential.”
Despite the commitment to staying up to date on digital advertising, one thing Ecelbarger says his company is not great at is selling online, which became apparent during the pandemic. When everything closed in March 2020, he redid all his marketing to encourage people to do business online instead of coming to the store. But the number of online leads was overwhelming and after five or six weeks, they had enough.
“Finally, we just said, we’re going back to our regular marketing,” Ecelbarger says. “We were showroom people. We want to drag people into our showroom every day. That’s where we do our best work.”
Mueller says marketing is one of the things that has impressed him since Watson’s acquired the company as well as, “the quality of their staff, their approach to marketing and sales and their overall level of professionalism throughout the organization.”
The COVID influx didn’t accelerate Ecelbarger’s business exit, though — it was looming one way or another. “[Business owners] have a business shelf life,” Ecelbarger says. “We have a business expiration date that’s going to come sooner or later.”
He had been courted by other buyers over the years, particularly during COVID, but none of those opportunities felt right. When Watson’s came calling, all the pieces fell into place, including that Ecelbarger and his wife Fran could continue working in the business for a few more years. Aged 65 when the papers were signed, he wasn’t ready to retire quite yet.
“But the good news for this business, there’s a continuation in place,” Ecelbarger says. His new title at Watson’s is director of Florida operations. “Our employees have a solid continuation in place. Our customers have a solid continuation in place. And at the time I hang it up, it’ll be fine. The truth of it is with Watson’s — and I’m not sad to say it — it’ll be bigger and better than what we would have done.”
Too Many Warehouses?
Recreational Warehouse: New York-based retailer, still open today
Rec Warehouse: Expansion of the New York Recreational Warehouse that grew throughout eight states. Now operates as e-commerce only.
The Recreational Warehouse: The stores owned by Ecelbarger, until he sold them to Watson’s in 2024.