Laguna specialty store Thee Foxes’ Trot has been sold
It’s the end of an era for Rosalie Gelston and her retail slice of downtown Laguna Beach.
After 37 years in business, she’s selling Thee Foxes’ Trot, the Forest Avenue institution that’s been selling distinctive clothing, gifts and other items for decades.
“We love our local customers and we welcome our visitors to Laguna as well that helped make the store the great success that it’s been,” Gelston said.
On Saturday, she officially hands the keys to the new co-owners, Frederick White and Corey Parry.
On Thursday, Gelston hosted a gathering of friends and supporters through the years: customers, other downtown merchants, vendors and suppliers.
Gelston said White and Parry want to keep Thee Foxes’ Trot intact while putting “their own stamp on the business.”
Nancy Fries, one of Gelston’s daughters, noted that White, who always admired Thee Foxes’ Trot, used to work nearby at Eschbach’s flower shop, another Laguna institution known for its colorful holiday displays. Fries and Gelston lauded White’s retail experience.
“Thee Foxes’ Trot will continue, under new ownership, to be a service-oriented specialty store stocked with unique gift items and original designed resort wear,” Gelston said in a followup email. “Fred has extensive experience in retail along with creativity to spare. He will make seasonal shopping come alive in Laguna.”
In 1976, Gelston and her husband, Hal, moved to Laguna, where they eventually raised three daughters.
Two years later, they decided to enter the retail world by buying Thee Foxes’ Trot, named after an English manor. Taking on the business might have seemed like an odd choice for the couple. In New York, Gelston, an alumna of the High School of Performing Arts in Manhattan, was a professional dancer who performed on Broadway. Hal worked in the direct-mail business.
The Laguna business started with a single storefront at 264 Forest Ave. By 1984, it had expanded to a second store — dubbed Thee Foxes’ Trot Next Door — at 260 Forest Ave. For a time, the family also operated a third store in Malibu.
The 260 Forest location was more contemporary than its predecessor, which was known for its collection of African artifacts, ethnic home furnishings and unique jewelry.
In 2001, after Hal died, the family consolidated the business by closing 264 Forest and locating everything at 260 Forest.
Fries noted that Thee Foxes’ Trot has kept its doors open through the decades, even as businesses around it did not.
“Thee Foxes’ Trot has been steady,” she said. “It’s been there through floods, fires, ups and downs of the economy. It’s always been there and it will continue to be there.”
Fries added in an email: “Proceeds from the store fed, clothed and housed me and my two sisters, put us through college, paid for our first cars, and paid for the repairs when we crashed those cars. We all worked in the stores.
“I am extremely proud of my mother for operating the store so successfully over the 14 years since my dad’s passing, and prouder still that she had the foresight to know when it was time to end this chapter of her life.”
In her retirement, Gelston, who now lives in Newport Beach, wants to spend more time traveling and visiting her second home in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“While I will miss the daily camaraderie of the downtown community,” Gelston said in an email, “I have many ties to Laguna and will forever have warm and wonderful feelings as I walk down Forest Avenue, stopping to say hello to Maggie at Louise’s Place or George at Fawn Memories — both friends and long-term merchants.”
