About Taylor Rental / Party Plus

Our Company

For some time, our dad, Gene, had wanted to own his own business. In March of 1980, he stumbled upon a Taylor Rental Center in Orange that was going out of business. Dad convinced our mother, Patty, that this was a good opportunity. They took a 2-day training course, were handed the keys to the front door and told, "Good luck, you’ll be fine".

They worked hard and the family business quickly grew. In 1984, they moved to our current location at 304 Boston Post Rd. in Orange. In 1990, Mom and Dad acquired the Taylor Rental in Branford. In 1994, they moved it from the top of the Branford Hill to its current address at 174 Cedar St. In so doing, they tripled the size of the building and the business has grown ever since. Brothers Bret, Matt, and Tim took over the business in 2003 when our parents retired. The transition was challenging, but we hit the ground running and have never looked back. 2004 saw an exterior and showroom makeover at the Orange store. We went even further in 2009 by adding a 5,700 square foot warehouse and completely changed the exterior landscaping in Orange.

From June 2010 through November 2018 we owned and operated the Taylor Rental Center in Monroe, CT, purchasing it from the Godrey and McDermott familes who founded and operated it for many years. While we’re proud of our time there, we decided to close that branch in order to simplify operations and focus on providing an even better customer experience from our 2 larger branches. We will continue to serve Monroe and the surrounding communities with more options and higher quality products.

July 1, 2016 saw the opening of our relocated Branford store to 160 North Branford Rd. This facilty, the former home of Cerrito Furniture, is 60% larger than our previous building. We now offer 2 distinct showrooms (equipment and special event). Each has a greatly expanded retail selection. Budget truck rental, Husqvarna, Honda, Hilti, and Minwax, are a few of the brands we feature. 20lb bags of ice, plastic table covers and disposables, concession supplies and Tiki brand items are a sample of the new items in the special event showroom.

We three brothers are well suited for the rental business, as we’ve been groomed since an early age with years of involuntary servitude. Saturdays and summers were spent doing everything from sweeping floors, washing dishes, and scrubbing chairs by hand, to installing tents, providing customer service, and managing all aspects of the store. We’ve been "doing it all" for a long time!

Something intangible but nevertheless critical to our success is the drive our parents instilled in us to continually improve ourselves, our products and to treat our customers and employees the way we would want to be treated. We must be doing something right as our full time staff has been with us an average of 15-20 years and we have a long list of loyal customers.

We understand that when you call or stop in, you are entrusting us to fulfill a need. Your home improvement or commercial construction project, wedding, birthday, anniversary party, corporate meeting or fundraising event is important to you and we want to be there to make it the best it can be.

Thanks for allowing us to be a part of your lives.

Bret, Matt, and Tim Lagasse