Historic Round Hill Landmark Changes Hands after 111 Years of Strain Family Ownership

After more than a century in the hands of the Strain family, the historic Round Hill Store/Round Hill Service Station property has changed ownership, marking a significant transition for two longtime fixtures of Greenwich’s backcountry community.
The property has been acquired by Chuck Royce and his family, residents known throughout Greenwich for their long history of supporting community-focused ventures as well as the Brumberg Family, longtime supporters of local charities who are raising their young family in the neighborhood. The new owners purchased the property in the name of the Round Hill Preservation Society. They plan to continue operating both the store and service station for the foreseeable future while considering their next chapter.
Established in 1801, the Round Hill Store has served the community for 225 years and is believed to be the oldest continuously operating retail business in Connecticut. During that time, it has had only three ownership groups. Royce and Brumberg become the fourth.
Originally located on the southwest corner of Round Hill and Old Mill roads, the store served as a stagecoach stop and, from 1830 to 1901, as the local post office. The building was later moved across the street to its present location, where it faces west.
Among the store’s historic treasures are handwritten bookkeeping journals dating to 1861, during the Civil War. The journals offer a glimpse into everyday life in 19th-century Round Hill, recording customers’ household accounts, individual purchases and the prices paid for goods.
In 1915, William Strain purchased the store, beginning 111 years of ownership and operation by four generations of the Strain family. As transportation and the needs of the community evolved, the Round Hill Service Station and an oil delivery business were added.
But here’s the fun part of its history: the downfall of the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley:
Over the decades, both businesses have become much more than places to pick up groceries or have a car repaired. They are informal gathering places where neighbors catch up, exchange local news and stay connected to the issues and activities in backcountry Greenwich.

“The store welcomes a cross-section of the community each day, [including] landscapers and tradespeople stopping for coffee and something from the deli” — it was those landscapers and tradesmen, aided by community gossip, who proved Leona’s ruin.

Morning after morning, month after month, the men would gather in the store and vent a steady stream of complaints about working at Leona’s place at 521 Round Hill Road, “Dunnellen Hall”. She was, they said, not only a notoriously late payer, and even then paying only a heavily discounted amount, she directed that all bills be billed and directed to the Helmsley Corporation in NYC, even though the work they performed had nothing to do with the corporation, and were entirely incurred by Mrs. Helmsley for her pleasure and personal use. The men felt put upon and cheated, and wondered why they had to pay taxes, while Helmsley did not.

“Don’t complain to me”, one of the owners finally said, tired of their constant grousing, “call up State Revenue and tell them”. Which at least one of them did, thereby initiating the criminal action that eventually saw Leona removed from Dunnellen Hall and lodged up the street in FCI Danbury, one of the many accommodations offered miscreants by our Federal Bureau of Prisons.

So far as I know, no one around here missed her.