Sacks Paints the Town

Dover’s fourth-generation wallcovering store has kept local homeowners and contractors looking good for 80 years.

By Ellen Wilkowe  Photos by Karen Fucito

Sacks Paint & Wallpaper has a family history as colorful as the 3,500 paints they sell.

Amid the ever-changing big-box retail culture, Sacks, located in downtown Dover, has been a staple of the community since 1945. And the family business—and name—transcend four generations.

The business is now in the hands of its third-generation owners, brothers Robert and Richard Davidson, and the fourth-generation owner, Richard’s son, Greg.

The Sacks family name has been in Dover since the 1930s, starting with Weiner & Sacks, a general store on Blackwell Street, between Sussex and Essex.

According to the family matriarch, 93-year-old Edith Davidson, her father, Izzy Sacks, and his brother-in-law, Eli Weiner, wanted two things: to start a business together and move out of Brooklyn. They and their wives moved to Dover, inspired by its bustling downtown and central location to surrounding suburban towns. The store sold everything, including the Wetsy Betsy Doll, a pearl-handle pistol, greeting cards, the hottest records of the day, and “a huge assortment of everything else,” said Edith in a phone interview in late 2024. Sadly, Edith passed away just before this article published.

The partners were successful, even opening a gift store a block away for a short time.

In 1945, Weiner and his wife (they had no children) wanted to retire, so they decided to sell the business. But Izzy and his wife, Bella, had two teenagers, Jay and Edith, and wanted to continue working.

With the money made from the sale of the general store, Sacks bought and moved into the Hartley paint store on Sussex Avenue, “not that he knew anything about it,” said Edith. But, she recalled, “he and my mother decided they could learn, and they did.” They renamed it Sacks Paint & Wallpaper and have served Dover and its surrounding community for 80 years.

Jay Sacks went off to college, then joined the family business full-time in 1950, working side by side with his father for many years. Edith and her husband, Artie Davidson, came on board in 1953. Edith said she took over the bookkeeping, allowing her mother to ease into retirement.

Thirty years later, Robert, Richard, and Richard’s brother-in-law, Michael Berwald, became the principal owners. They have navigated the business into the 21st century.

Greg, 34, joined in 2020. Berwald retired three years ago; today, the multi-generational business boasts five full-time employees. 

Richard, 67, is the company’s president. He attributes the store’s longevity to his late grandfather’s simple philosophy: “Be nice to people. [That] is hard to find in this day and age,” he said.

“Beyond the actual paints and colors, we try to make people feel at home and try to make life as simple as possible.”

Younger brother Robert, the company’s vice president, echoed those sentiments.

“One of our major slogans is ‘at Sacks paint, we make people happy,’” which was coined in 2014.

“If you walk into a business and its employees are unhappy, then most likely the customers are unhappy,” said the 60-year-old. “From a management perspective, if you treat employees well, you have happy employees working for you.” The slogan was such a hit it was used in a television commercial.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Like his father, Greg spent summers in college working at the store. He entered corporate America following graduation before making his way back to the family business. That was four years ago. Like his father and uncle, Greg is a graduate of Syracuse University.

Richard has 44 years of industry experience. He’s seen the days of the same yellows, greens, and blues—and an inventory of more than 3,000 color choices—but he embraces the new demand for neutral tones.

“Twenty years ago, the standard operating procedure may have been a burgundy dining room, gold living room, and a sage color,” he said. “The trend is now to paint similar colors or one color throughout the house. Neutrals, grays, and taupes are all the rage.”

Another popular trend that Richard attributed to the pandemic is painting kitchen cabinets. “It’s the easiest way to upgrade a kitchen,” he noted.

Assisting customers with paint and wallpaper selection is where the custom in customer service comes in.

Robert said every paint that leaves the store—Sacks sells over 50,000 gallons of paint a year—is custom-mixed.

“We show the customers the colors, ask what they’re looking for, and try to get the colors to their liking,” said Richard.

Patrons are given strips of color or half-pint paint samples to perform wall tests at home, or they might purchase right on the spot, sight unseen.

“When orders come in, we’re like a pizza place,” said Richard. “We’re like, ‘OK, this guy ordered and will be here in 10 minutes, this guy ordered and will be here in 30 minutes, and this guy will be in tomorrow.’”

Neutral paint craze aside, wallpaper, too, is in the mix and making a comeback, he said.

“There’s a lot of people coming in and buying wallpaper, especially for their bathrooms,” he said. “The newer homes with open floor plans also may opt for modern wallpaper.”

Typical customers range from DIY homeowners to contractors hired by homeowners and commercial and manufacturing facilities.

“The core is the homeowner in Morris County who is decorating their home and the contractor who is doing all that work for them,” added Richard. “Residential is our bread and butter. The affluence of America, especially in Morris County, has created a lot of people hiring contractors.”

CUSTOMERS FIRST

Cathy Nardone-Dircks has been a customer since 1975 when she searched out just the right wallpaper for her house in Boonton Township. That was when Jay Sacks, Artie, and Edith Davidson ran the store. Just recently, Nardone-Dircks was back, working with Greg to choose just the right paint for a bathroom makeover.

“It’s fabulous here,” she said. “They’re so easy to work with, always so helpful.”

Commercially speaking, Sacks provides consultation and materials for many local businesses, said Richard.

Sacks is in the midst of their busy season, which starts in mid-April and ends around Thanksgiving.

“A large part of that is outside work like [house] painting and deck staining and then over the winter, inside painting,” he said.

The store is not exempt from upgrades either.

Richard spends a large chunk of time on store upgrades. This excludes the personal photos and posters spread throughout the store.

“Our personality is in our store,” he said. “There are posters of mountains we have skied, posters of mountains we have climbed, posters that pay homage to our favorite band, the Grateful Dead.”

But it’s not paint and paper all the time. Beyond the confines of the 5,000-square-foot store, all roads lead to the outdoors.

Richard, a self-described avid cyclist, also plays tennis. He’s been known to trade in his brushes for ski poles, joining his brother on the slopes in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

Robert, an avid runner as well as skier, founded and managed the Salt Shakers, a local running group that raised $130,000 for Sussex County Women’s Forum, a nonprofit breast cancer organization that helps women obtain mammograms. (In 2022, the Salt Shakers formally ended its 12-year run, but informally, some members still survive, calling themselves The Lost Shakers of Salt.)

So, is there life after paint for the Davidson brothers?

“That is something that we will start to figure out in the near future,” said Richard.