The idea for what is by far the most gorgeous sporting goods store I’ve ever visited began in the pages of the Sears catalog. It was while dreaming of all the firearms and fishing gear that he couldn’t afford in that annual publication that Gordy & Sons founder Russell Gordy hatched the idea of one day owning a store that sold all that he wished for. Several decades of hard work and good fortune later, Gordy’s dream became a reality.
And a more “dreamlike” reality you’ll never find.
Founded by Russell Gordy and his two sons Garrett and Shaun, the store opened in Houston in the summer of 2017.
Located in the Heights area of Houston, Texas, Gordy & Sons is a store that blends the best of bespoke and signature firearms, world-class fishing equipment, art and jewelry with a knowledgeable and Texas-friendly staff. I encountered the first of the latter when I was met at the door of 22 Waugh Drive by Grace Cier. This energetic and accompanying young lady was as accommodating as she was knowledgeable and went out of her way to show me, and other customers in the store, around the 11,000-square-foot, museum-like showroom, offer suggestions, and answer any and all questions.
Grace, like most of the staff, isn’t from Houston but moved there from Montana after being recruited by Russell Gordy. As Manager Mike Burnett explained, there’s no point in selling the best if you don’t have an equally as good staff to detail why the items are the best.
“That’s one of the things I’m most proud of,” Burnett admits. “That Mr. Gordy invested the time to search out some of the best people in the business from around the country and then brought them here together is truly unique.”
The fly fishing department is on the left side of the showroom as well as outside where visitors can test out equipment in a stocked casting pond that is ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and around eleven feet deep.
What’s also unique is that Gordy & Sons hired Dustin Mount, who’s the only Purdey factory-authorized gunsmith in North America. Mount was brought aboard before the store opened in May 2017 to assist in the purchase of two year’s production of firearms from the famed gunmaker. By all accounts, this means that Gordy & Sons is the only stocking dealer of new Purdey firearms in the country (I counted more than 40 new Purdeys on the shelf during my visit).
And while Gordy can take credit for bringing Mount to his store, he can’t for Mount’s apprenticeship at Purdey. That can be traced to legendary singer Eric Clapton.
“I was doing some training at a little gun shop in Wales when Eric Clapton brought in a Beesley,” Mount recalls. “I fixed it for him, and then we went and shot pheasants together. After that he went and found Nigel Beaumont [chairman of the board of James Purdey & Sons Limited] and told Nigel, ‘There’s an American in Wales that can fix your guns better than you.’ Because that gun had been to Purdey three times before.’”
Beaumont tracked down Mount and convinced him—it wasn’t hard—to take on a four-year apprenticeship. When Mount returned stateside, Gordy was one of his first clients.
Located in downtown Houston, Gordy & Sons stocks more than a thousand sporting arms by many of the world’s most renowned makers. The guns, clothing, fishing gear, and art are displayed in the store’s 11,000 square-foot showroom. The vault holds some 400 high-end rifles and shotguns.
Dustin Mount was recruited by Gordy shortly thereafter.
In addition to Purdey, Gordy & Sons is also a Caesar Guerini Elite Dealer, a Remington Custom, and a Marlin Custom Shop. It carries such other coveted firearms as Krieghoff, Battista Rizzini, Zoli, Rigby, J.P. Sauer & Sohn, Nesika and Blaser.
Most of these guns are “on the rack,” while a few others are on display and ready to be examined in the store’s massive walk-in safe, which features a nine-ton door and is so large that the store’s back wall had to be torn down in order to move the safe into place. Despite this security, the inside is extremely accommodating and houses the finest collection of firearms I’ve ever seen.
As Burnett explained, “Not everything in the vault is extremely high end. It’s just more unique, more collectible, or more rare.”
The clothing and hunting accessories are just as impressive as the firearms. Visitors to the store can outfit themselves with apparel by Purdey, Beretta, Sitka or Filson; footwear by Dubarry and Le Chameau; optics by Leica and Swarovski; knives by William Henry and Rigby; and a host of other upper-end brands.
On the opposite end of the store—just past the overstuffed leather club chairs that sit in front of the well-appointed cigar humidors—is Gordy & Sons’ fly fishing department. Actually, I should say that the fly fishing department is on the left side of the showroom as well as outside, because that’s where visitors can test out equipment.
“Our casting pond is ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and around eleven feet deep,” says Burnett. “We built it so customers can come in and, if they’re interested in a particular fly rod or a reel, go try it out and actually fight a fish with it. The pond is stocked with peacock bass, smallmouth bass and several other species.”
The equipment customers can try out is a fly fishers’ dream. Hatch, Abel, Ross, Hardy, Galvin and Tibor are just a few of the brands fly aficionados will find in the store.
In addition to hunting and fishing gear, Gordy & Sons also displays sporting art by sculptors and painters from around the world. The artwork is always changing and well worth a visit to the store alone. Although I don’t see how anyone could visit Gordy & Sons just for the art. There’s just far too many of the dreams that Russell Gordy turned into reality to marvel, test, and visit about.
“Truly fine guns are as much works of art as poems, novels, or paintings,” writes acclaimed outdoor writer Michael McIntosh in this classic book. And who better to guide us through the world of fine guns than McIntosh. Here, he captured the whole gun–the gun as a combination of form, fit, and function. Divided into two sections, the first on the art of guns and gunmaking, and the last on the art of shooting, this book is, as McIntosh himself says, “a celebration of the gun.” Indeed, it’s a celebration no lover of fine double guns should miss. Shop Now
