Roots run deep

Barbara Diamond

It’s all in the family. And it makes a difference.

“Businesses like ours make Laguna Beach unique,” said Sheila

Bushard Jamison, second generation owner of Bushard Pharmacy. “Our

customers are not just a prescription number.”

However, numbers demonstrate the effect of family-owned businesses

on the economy, if not the heartstrings.

Almost 11 million companies in the United States are run by the

business founder or descendant, with the intention of keeping it in

the family, according to a study conducted by Joseph Astrachan and

Melissa Shanker of Family Business Consulting Firm in Marietta, Ga.

The study was based on statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor

Statistics, the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S.

Treasury Department. The study was published in the September 2003

edition of Family Business Review and reported in the January 2004

issue of Family Business Advisor.

Those more than 10 million companies represent 39% of the national

business tax returns and 77 million jobs.

They are the kinds of businesses that set the special tone of

Laguna Beach.

“We take a personal interest in our customers,” Bushard Jamison

said. “We know where they live, where they go on vacation. Often,

people will see someone they know at the pharmacy and start talking,

and then, we get involved.

“We know their kid’s names and their neighbors,” she said. “I’d

say we know 90% of our customers by name -- their first name.”

The other 10% of the pharmacy’s customers are from out of town.

“But even they recognize the difference,” Bushard Jamison said.

Bushard Jamison inherited the pharmacy from her father, Joseph

Bushard, and her uncle, Earl.

The two men began business in Laguna Beach in a building across

the street from Hotel Laguna in 1946. They later moved to Forest

Avenue, leasing the building now occupied by Scandia Bakery, and in

1960, they bought the lot where the pharmacy has stood for almost 50

years.

Bushard Jamison started working in the pharmacy when she 14 and

probably would have studied pharmacy in college, but her father sold

the business because he thought he was getting old, according to

family lore.

“He went nuts,” Bushard Jamison said. “After four years, he bought

the pharmacy back. But by that time, I was a senior in college, and I

didn’t want to start all over.”

She works most days at the pharmacy. Her 16-year-old daughter,

Marisa, sometimes helps. Son Luke would like to help, but he is only

5.

Jason Romero wasn’t much older than Luke Jamison when his father

had him setting up lights and wetting down parking lots for

architectural photographs.

Don Romero, who has been in Laguna Beach since 1971, gave up a

thriving real estate partnership to become a professional

photographer of architecture, a leap of faith for a single father of

two young sons. He learned the fine points of photography from

Festival of Arts exhibitor Dan Snipes. The skills came with practice

and the business from real estate contacts.

“Eventually, I needed a helper,” Romero said. “Jason was 8 or 10

when I started taking him on jobs. John [Romero’s elder son] was too

cool. At first Jason didn’t like it, but he finally got into it.”

The younger Romero was recently named Photographer of the Year,

earning the most merit points in portrait, commercial and wedding

categories in the annual Professional Photographers of Orange County

competition.

Romero Photography is a real family affair, with father and son

working full-time behind the cameras, and Don’s wife, Lori, running

the studio.

Pauline and Lisa Kyne are a mother-daughter team of dancers,

choreographers and teachers. Kyne Academy classes in ballet, jazz,

tap and hip hop are available through the Laguna Beach Recreation

Department. Some of their students are children, some are the

parents.

Morris Skenderian has been an architect in Laguna Beach for 33

years. His nephew Todd has worked in the office for 11 years.

Daughter-in-law Tammy has been the office manager for 10 years.

Skenderian’s son Marcus worked in the office for five years, but

eventually went into construction. He is the only one of the second

generation who worked in the office as a youngster.

“One reason the practice is so successful is because it is

family-run,” employee Gail Farnworth said.

Maggie Markarian was 19 when her mother, Louise Kuyumcian, opened

Louise’s Place on Forest Avenue in 1977. Markarian has worked on her

own since when Kuyumcian retired three years ago.

“I have only one son, and he probably won’t be interested in the

business,” Markarian said. “But I have two nieces.”

Three generations of Abel men, with a fourth on the horizon, have

built or designed homes, or both, in Laguna Beach, although each

owned his own business. They are stitched together by name,

professional interests and early training.

Carl Christian Abel brought his family to the United States in

1925 and moved them to Laguna Beach in 1937. Four or five of the

homes he designed and built are still standing, family members said.

“I worked for my father when I was at Laguna Beach High School,”

said licensed architect Christian Abel, known almost exclusively as

Chris. “My son worked for me, and now my daughter Julia’s boyfriend

is interning at my office.”

Abel’s son Gregory Christian said he takes after his grandfather.

“I was 14 when I began working for my dad, tracing and doing

details,” said the builder-designer. “I worked in his office until I

was 27 or 28, and then, I went on my own.”

His son Tristan Kyle Christian will begin a four-year course in

architecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the fall.

One of the city’s business dynasties ended in 2001 when the

Jahraus family sold Laguna Lumber.

Four generations of the family had worked in the business that

Joseph Richard Jahraus I opened on Forest Avenue in 1913 -- the

office was where Cedar Creek Inn, also a family-owned business, has

made itself a presence in town. His son Joseph Richard II, known as

Richard, worked there until he handed over the reins to his sons.

McCalla’s Pharmacy, where father and daughter served the

community, is closed. The door to the Shield family’s hardware store

on Forest Avenue is long closed. Andrus Plumbing has a new owner.

The multi-generation, family-owned stores that remain make a

difference, a definable contribution to the indefinable “village

atmosphere” that has made Laguna Beach a favorite Downtown in

countless surveys and in the hearts and memories of its residents.

“They keep tradition alive,” Mayor Cheryl Kinsman said. “I know

they are there. I like knowing they are there, and I don’t like it if

they are not there.”