For more than 60 years, the smell of leather has welcomed shoppers entering Colonial Saddle Shop. That scent is about to become a memory.

Longtime Napa retailer Gary Vanbrocklin is getting ready to ride off into the sunset. On Thursday his Imola Avenue Western wear and tack store launched a liquidation sale. He is calling it quits.

Reflecting back on the years of serving customers, Vanbrocklin said, “I would do it all over again. It’s all about the people.”

“This is a way of life,” he said. “We’re not like CEOs in big chain stores.”

For about 63 years, Colonial Saddle Shop has supplied Napa Valley’s horsemen, farmers, ranchers, 4-Hers and high school rodeo riders.

Cowboy boots, blue jeans, belts, moccasins, Western shirts, felt hats, straw hats, horse blankets, bridles, bits, grooming supplies, horse reins and saddles are a partial list of what will be sold. “We’ve got a lot of stuff,” Vanbrocklin said, looking around the store on Monday afternoon.

Customers will be able to chose from about 2,000 pairs of boots, including the new fall selections. Nearly 150 cowboy hats are for sale at a variety of prices, going all the way past $600.

“We’re just going to sell through until its gone,” said Paul Ream, who is handling the consolidation sale for Vanbrocklin.

A dying breed?

The floor-to-ceiling windows are covered with sheets of butcher paper announcing the clearance sale, some sheets show a cowboy slumped in the saddle.

“Western stores across the country are going out of business,” Ream said.

Vanbrocklin, 65, said he believes people are losing their ties to agriculture, so stores like his are becoming a dying breed. In the store’s prime, he had as much as $400,000 in inventory, he said.

A part of old Napa will disappear with the closing of Colonial Saddle Shop. Vanbrocklin recalls that in the store’s heyday customers went to horse shows and rodeos. “These are changing times.”

Vanbrocklin said the business started on Main Street and was owned by two brothers as a shoe repair business. He couldn’t recall the names of the two original owners. But, one of the brothers was a avid horseman, so the business evolved into a Western wear and tack store. Vanbrocklin has been involved with the business since 1977.

The western shop then moved to the Westwood Shopping Center, which is now the Napa Premium Outlets.

Colonial Saddle Shop moved to its current Riverpark site 14 years ago on Father’s Day, Vanbrocklin, said.

Winnie, a 10-year-old half Border collie and Queensland heeler, has been at Vanbrocklin’s side at the store.

Another icon in the store is Blackie, a fiberglass horse, which for the liquidation sale has been pushed into an inconspicuous corner.

Vanbrocklin’s decision to close was based on several factors: Declining sales for the past several years, a lease that is winding down and rent that keeps going up. “People just aren’t coming through the front door,” he said.

“I’ll miss it. I’ve been in this industry 41 years. The customers are what I’ll miss the most ... and the sales reps who called on me and became good friends. We are a small mom-and-pop business,” said Vanbrocklin, looking around his 5,000-square-foot store. “I’m sad. But, I believe I’m doing the right thing.”

Helping youngsters

Vanbrocklin has been a longtime supporter of high school rodeo and the Junior Livestock Auction at the Napa Town and Country Fair.

More than 50 photos of kids with their livestock animals hang on a wall in the store. He’s also active in the Napa Chamber of Commerce.

“Gary is a great guy and a hard worker who supports the community. I’d see him at the Junior Livestock Auction ... he was like the Pied Piper ... kids following him around asking if he would buy their livestock project,” said Napa attorney Matthew Bishop, whose family ranching roots run deep in the Napa Valley. “Gary’s done a lot for kids that no one knows about. He’s not the kind of guy to blow his own horn.”

Vanbrocklin laments the loss of agricultural ways. “Our society is getting further removed from its agricultural roots. Today, kids have to go to a petting zoo.”

Don’t expect Vanbrocklin to sit back and enjoy his golden years. He wants to get a “simple part-time job and let someone else do the worrying.” He said he may also volunteer at the Visitor’s Center.

Customers had no shortage of memories of going to Colonial Saddle Shop.

“My first charge account was when I was 10 years old — and it was at the Colonial Saddle Shop,” said Bishop. He remembers buying a new rope for calf roping.

“It was the only equestrian-based store in Napa County. They had an inventory that was out of this world. Anything you wanted they had,” Bishop said. “Me and my brother used to show market steers, and we’d buy all our soaps and sprays at the Colonial Saddle Shop.”

Bishop describes the business as more than just a store. “It was a meeting place. I remember my dad and Buster Wolfe arguing about cattle prices ... you never knew who you would run into there. You could see millionaires and felons ... sometimes there is a fine line between the two,” he said laughing.

Bishop’s earliest memory of meeting Vanbrocklin was at the Napa Mill, where the latter was working at the time — long before it became a tourist destination including restaurants and hotel.

“I guess now that he is closing, I better go in and pay off my charge account,” Bishop said.

Lisa Batto, executive vice president of the Napa Chamber of Commerce, recalls going into Colonial Saddle Shop when it was in the Westwood Shopping Center. Blackie stood prominently.

Batto got her first horse, named Angel, when she was 16. “I bought my first saddle and first pair of boots there — the boots were suede,” Batto said.

Vanbrocklin, she said, “provided a great service to everyone from 4-H to the former Monticello Horsemen’s Association and the Napa Valley Horseman Association,” Batto added.

Kate King, president and CEO of the Napa Chamber of Commerce, also laments the loss of a Napa businessman who has been a chamber member for almost 20 years.

“He’s had a good run with that store,” King said. “This is sad for me, I’m a huge Western fan.”

A niche store such as Colonial Saddle Shop faces strong competition from the Internet, she said.

“I want people to shop locally ... it creates a strong local economy,” King said. “I will miss him.”