“Hanging on after all these years”

Posted: 13 Jun 2010 03:06 AM PDT

Aspen's 40-plus year businesses share their secrets of survival

The recession has taken a harsher than usual toll on Aspen retailers and restaurants, which for years were subject to the bi-annual "off-season shuffle" — a musical chairs game of sorts where some businesses close their doors and others change locations.

Local establishments that have recently gone under — due at least in part to economic tough times — include Social restaurant, Short Sport, the Steak Pit and Double Dog Pub, and Rodney's Pharmacy, among many others.

But for every shop that goes out of business, there are many more that are hanging on. And rarely do Aspen's veteran businesses — those that are not only hanging on but are fixtures in the local retail landscape — make headlines.

There are a handful of local retailers who have been in business more than 40 years, under the same ownership or at least within the family. The Aspen Daily News talked to four of them — Attic Fantasies/Great Wall of Shirts, Carl's Pharmacy, Pattie's Gemagination and Pitkin County Dry Goods — about their history, their competition, and how they've managed to survive even through today's tough economic climate.

Diligent financial management, ability to adapt with the times and customers' demands, and willingness by the owner/operator to work long hours were the main themes given for those business' staying power. Longevity helps, as does the knowledge of Aspen's unique business scene that comes with it. High rents have been a factor from time to time, but not a bad word was said about their landlords.
Attic Fantasies: 'good product, great price'

With all the T-shirt shops in Aspen, few locals passing by Attic Fantasies/Great Wall of Shirts in the North of Nell building would guess it's been in business for 41 years.

Starting as a gift and candy shop that sold "everything under the sun," Attic Fantasies was founded by the mother of Pat and Jim Newkam in 1969, according to Pat Newkam, who now owns and runs the shop with his brother.

At that time, said Newkam, women couldn't get business loans so his mother used her credit card to buy everything she needed to get the shop running.

"Mom worked for seven years by herself; she couldn't afford help," said Newkam, who recalled beginning to help in the shop after school when he was 7 or 8 years old.

In those days, summer wasn't a tourist season and winter business consisted of a couple weeks in December, February and March.

"Mom could get by on four good months," Newkam said.

"Mom also had worked on Wall Street as one of the first female runners, so she always invested wisely and was savvy with her finances," said Newkam.

Still, the winter of 1976/1977 — the one long-time locals remember as having no snow — hit hard, and was the toughest time the shop went through prior to the current recession.

But his parents grew up in the Depression, Newkam said, so "they always planned for the worst."

The sons took over the store in 1995, and carried on the hard work and frugal ethics of their mother. Newkam works seven days a week, 70 hours a week, he said. He does little advertising, and networks with concierges and tourist officials to draw people to his store.

In the 1990s, Attic Fantasies added clothing and T-shirts to supplement the locally-made products — such as ceramics, wood vases and metal aspen branches — some of which has been available for nearly as long as the shop has been open.

"Gifts are OK but I can't pay my rent with gifts anymore," Newkam said. The 72 styles on the "Great Wall of Shirts" are bestsellers — inexpensive gifts that are easy to carry home and are appropriate for anyone, including Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and many other celebrities who have shopped there.

Taking time with each customer is important, Newkam said.

"You've got to work your shop. A lot of people don't work their shop, don't pay a living wage and then blame the lack of business on their employees," he said.

The most expensive item in Attic Fantasies is $49, and Newkam strictly follows his mother's belief in "a good product at a great price." But it wasn't easy in the heyday of Aspen real estate just a few years ago when rent prices were higher.

"If you're spending $130 a square foot, which I was at one time, you're not going to make it," said Newkam, who now pays $85 per square foot.

Now in its third location (having just moved one space over in the North of Nell this spring), the store gained 700 square feet. It was a tough call to sign a lease that still has eight years on it in this climate, Newkam said. The brothers could have retired in May when their previous lease was up, but "we felt there was still money to be made. We think the bottom is now," Newkam added.

Last winter was "definitely rough" and "scary," and Newkam acknowledges that "this year is going to be a tight one."
Pattie's and Lisa's gem of a store

Opening about a year after Attic Fantasies in a 200-square-foot space in the Aspen Square building, Pattie's Potpourri began as a way for a young woman to be able to support her skiing habit, and is now — like the Newkams' shop — in its second generation of family-run ownership.

Pattie Ward, a radiation therapist by training, came to Aspen to ski in the winter of 1968/69, and after her first summer decided to stay. She worked for a local jeweler for a winter and when he decided to leave town, she took over his lease.

"The rest, as they say, is history," she said.

Asked if she thought her jewelry store stint would be temporary or long-term, Ward answered, "I had no idea." Skiing was the driving force then, and she would ski in the mornings and open the shop at noon.

After the shop's first Christmas, however, Ward knew the attraction was permanent because sales during that period were so big.

She has moved the store four times over the years, and owned three others in the late 1970s (two jewelry stores in Snowmass and Glenwood, and a men's clothing store in Aspen) — opening them shortly after the drought winter that nearly crippled many other local businesses.

But the Ward retail empire didn't last long.

"I realized that one good store is better than three," she said.

The Aspen store was renamed twice over the years, most recently called Pattie's Gemagination, although the awning on the Cooper Avenue location across from the Red Onion says Pattie's Fine Jewelry.

One of the reasons for Ward's success is the lasting personal relationships she's been able to build with customers and vendors.

"She has an amazing memory, not only for customers' names, but she remembers their hometowns and what jewelry they bought last year," said her daughter Lisa Lynn Culloden-Ward, who took over the store in April after re-negotiating the lease. Because of Culloden-Ward's ownership, the store has officially been renamed L Jewelry Aspen — a new sign is coming soon.

Ward also has stayed with many of the same vendors, giving them advice on how to tweak and improve their lines to meet the desires of her customers.

And as Aspen customers became wealthier and rents went up over the years, so did the value of Ward's jewelry — another reason for her continued success, she said.

Summers have been a boon for business; the past several years have out shadowed the winters at the jewelry shop. Both women feel positive about the coming summer — second-home owners are coming earlier, staying longer and often have plenty of guests to bring out shopping and dining, they said.

But as positive as the mother-daughter team is, they agree it's been difficult times.

"It's always tough; you have to work," said Ward, adding that she worked seven days a week in the store. "I don't think absentee owners can do very well here."

Culloden-Ward is prepared to do the same to build her own brand — up to 12-hour days seven days a week. She plans to use Internet advertising and social media skills to attract a new, younger clientele.

Culloden-Ward started officially working for her mother when she was 13 — she literally grew up in the shop, she said — and because of that experience, she pursued a degree in gemology. She left Aspen for a few years, working in jewelry stores in Vail and North Carolina, and taking a professional detour in the Internet advertising world, before returning home like she always knew she would.

"I loved working for my mom, but it was good for me to see the hard corporate infrastructure," she said.

Culloden-Ward came back in December 2009 and signed a new lease April 1, devoting the off-season to an extensive interior makeover.

In 2008, the recession "hit like a bomb at Christmas," said Ward, and winter was off about 50 percent.

Things picked up in 2009, but "I don't think we'll ever be back to where we were," she said, adding that paying the bills and making a little bit of money is all that can be expected these days.

One thing that has changed lately, however, is buying lines with lower price points, said Culloden-Ward.

But catering to the customer, and being personable and friendly have always been important, the women said, adding that the shop's longevity reassures clients that it's not a short-term, fly-by-night operation.

And then there's the loyalty to the place.

"Aspen is an amazing place to be; you'd have to drag me away kicking and screaming," said Culloden-Ward.
Pitkin County Dry Goods evolves

Considering that fashion is a far more fickle and changing industry than T-shirts, gifts and jewelry, it must be more than luck that Pitkin County Dry Goods is Aspen's second oldest retail business under the same ownership.

Yet owner David Fleisher's secrets of success are none too different from the other long-standing retailers': being involved in the operation, savvy financial management, and evolving with customers' demands and climbing rents.

"[Business has] always been cyclical just as Aspen is always cyclical," said Fleisher, the sole owner of the store since 2004. "When the economy's good we do well, and there's as many bad years as there are good years. We've done well because we're flexible and we evolve."

Fleisher's brother, Donald, opened Pitkin County Dry Goods on July 4, 1969. In need of a job, he said, Fleisher took a leave of absence from law school and wound up on a leave for what has now been 41 years. He took over from his brother's partner in 1971, and that same year hired the woman who would become his wife. They've run the store together since then.

The store has had plenty of competition over the years — at the time it opened there was only one other clothing store in town — Bill Bullock's, which sold Levis and boots, sheets and thread in the location where the Gap is now. Donald Fleisher figured there was an alternative to those basic items, and when the store opened it sold very contemporary, mod clothing — Aspen's first fashion retailer.

Fleisher describes the store's style as "fashionable but not overly trendy; it works for the Aspen lifestyle."

As trends have evolved both locally and nationwide, so has the store's inventory. Beyond the obvious changes in style over the decades, there have been plenty of economic changes.

During the last "great recession," in the early 1980s, men pulled back on buying, and the store changed its floor space to offer less product for men and more for women.

In the early 1990s, Aspen saw a higher than normal influx of wealthy people.

"It forced us to evolve prices upward without becoming too expensive," said Fleisher.

Because of the escalation of commercial rents over the years, it means the store has to sell a certain amount of volume.

Fleisher declined to reveal his current rent, saying only that he hasn't asked for a rent reduction from his landlord, Dick Fitzgerald, because he believes it's fair, and that he's on a long-term lease. He distinctly remembers, however, paying $7 per square foot in rent in 1972 at the second of four locations the store has occupied.

The most difficult economic downturn for the store was the no-snow winter of '76-'77, he said. By now, "after being in business this long I've been through so many recessions I can do it on autopilot, because I learned to deal with it in Aspen."

When the current recession hit, Fleisher dumped a lot of inventory, didn't rehire for positions that were voluntarily vacated, and was in a position to be able to sustain the business on capital for up to nine months if necessary.

There's no question of downsizing from the 4,000-square-foot store on Cooper Avenue — if anything, he could use more space, Fleisher said.

Asked what words of wisdom he would give to other retailers who want to stick around, Fleisher said there's a kind of intuition he's learned over the years about buying the right merchandise that can't be taught. Otherwise, he said, "you have to act quickly on what you know you have to do, like keeping your inventory in line. And you have to be somewhat well capitalized."

And though he works behind the scenes now, Fleisher does get on the floor during busy times. Having inadvertently found his passion, he has no immediate plans for retiring.

The best kind of landlord

Functioning as much more of a true general store than a pharmacy, and the only one of its kind in town, it's no surprise that Carl's Pharmacy — along with its sister store, the Miners Building — is Aspen's oldest retail business.

Of course it doesn't hurt that its owners also have been the landlords since 1965 — the only one of the four businesses discussed here that hasn't had the factor of escalating rents, and that's been in the same location throughout its history.

"Without [owning] the building we probably wouldn't be in business today," said Linda Brining, the daughter of owners Carl and Katie Bergman. Brining, one of four accountants for the business who covers other duties when needed, plans to slide into her parents' role if they ever retire.

The Bergmans came to Aspen in 1963 and Carl, a pharmacist, worked at what was then Matthew Drug for two years before the owner decided to retire. The family bought the business in 1965, added the second floor a year or two later, and built the Miners Building in 1976.

With each addition, the business could add more inventory — a wise move considering that now many of those items can only be found at Carl's. (The only thing that was removed was the soda fountain — that area is now the liquor store.)

"Dad figured we needed to have everything anybody could ever want to buy," said Brining, who added that over the years there have been several other drug stores and several other hardware stores, "but not like this."

Still, the business has seen its share of tough times. The Miners Building opened just in time for the winter of no snow. Brining recalls her parents rearranging the meager selection of items on the shelves because they didn't have money to reorder anything.

And while things have definitely slowed down at Carl's and the Miners the last couple of years, Brining notes that Aspen is faring better than many places in the country. She has no doubt that the business can survive — and her family is certainly not planning on going anywhere.

"Both are valuable businesses for this town, they don't cater to just one kind of person — it's everybody," she said.

Both businesses combined employ 60 people, and Brining credits those people for getting through the tough times. Many are longtime employees — the pharmacists have been there for more than 30 years, she said. Some positions have been eliminated by attrition.

And then there's the family's work ethic and passion for Aspen.

Carl Bergman still runs the Miners Building, while his wife is more in charge of the drug store, albeit more behind the scenes now. For decades, Carl worked 14 hours a day, seven days a week, said Brining. He still comes in every day, and finds plenty of time to ski in the winter.

"Dad will never retire; it's a family business and it will stay that way," said Brining. "We love it; that's what we do."
lutz@aspendailynews.com