As corporations around the world report their 2006 earnings, there’s good news at Norris Hardware, the town’s venerable hardware store and the only third-generation, family-owned business in Pacific Palisades. ‘We had the best sales day in the history of the store on Saturday, the weekend before Christmas,’ said Grant Sears, who runs the store with his wife, Ellen, granddaughter of founder Robert Norris. ‘And we had a very successful year.’ ‘Our sales have been increasing year,’ noted Ellen, who works with her husband in a second-floor office that was once the projection room for the Bay Theater, which closed its doors in 1978 and left the Palisades without a movie house. The two Bay Theater screens were at the far end of the current Norris building (next to the car wash), ‘and the floor slanted down’ for audience viewing, ‘so Dad had to bring dirt in to level the floor,’ Ellen explained. ‘When he was working with the contractor, he saved a [40-ft.] strip of tile from the old sidewalk entrance and left it there when they laid new cement, as a reminder for people who walk by. I think he did it for nostalgia.’ Ellen’s father, Chuck, was the fourth baby born in Pacific Palisades (on September 29, 1923), and his life traced the town’s evolving history from a tent community in Temescal Canyon to hillside mansions in the Highlands. Following its dedication as a permanent town on January 14, 1922, the Palisades began to attract early “settlers” who lived in tents while waiting for the first homes to be built on the adjacent mesas. These first families included Robert Norris and his wife, Clarissa, sister of the town’s founder, Methodist minister Charles Scott. Norris had been called from Long Beach to put in the first plumbing lines and was responsible for nearly all the plumbing installed here those first few years. He also established a plumbing shop on the corner of Temescal Canyon Road and Beverly Boulevard (now Sunset), which in 1925 evolved into Norris Hardware in the new Business Block building. In 1956, Norris moved his store to Swarthmore (in the space now occupied by Benton’s and Dante’s), and in April 1979–with Chuck now in charge–the store moved into its current its 10,500-sq-.ft. location on Sunset. Chuck, who had been stationed in England during World War II after joining the Army Air Corps in 1943, returned to work at Norris Hardware and shortly thereafter met his wife, Vera. They had four children’Bridget, Alan, Ellen and Melissa’and were able to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in the fall of 1996, shortly before Chuck died of cancer. After his death, June Phelps wrote “A Tribute to Chuck Norris” letter to the Palisadian-Post, describing him as ‘a person we thought of as ‘Mr. Palisades.’ There are a number of such local proprietors that over the years have made our Village life special, but Mr. Norris would be a charter member on my list.’ Ellen Norris said that her grandparents built two houses on Kagawa, and that her dad built a house on Las Lomas after the war, with help from his Army buddies. She attended local public schools, graduating from Palisades High in 1971, and continued working at the family store while attending Santa Monica College. She married Grant in 1978 and they now have a home near Calabasas, next door to her brother Alan, who has worked at Norris since his teenage years. Bridget is married and lives in Mar Vista with her two children, and Melissa lives with her mother, her husband and two children in the Palisades. The sisters no longer work at the store. In an interview last week, Grant Sears recalled that after growing up in the South and serving in the military, he moved out to California and eventually worked for United Airlines at LAX for about 15 years. In the mid-1980s, he said, ‘I decided to try something new. I talked to Chuck and Alan, who were running the stores, and asked if I could learn the business. I did a little bit of everything’sweeping floors, selling, working the service counter.’ ‘You swept the floors?’ Ellen said, looking up quizzically from her computer. ‘That’s what I used to do at the old store.’ In 1998, about a year after her father died, Ellen and Grant signed a 20-year lease (‘at very reasonable terms for this area,’ he said) and have since been adding floor employees as well as a general manager and an assistant to help run the business. They currently have 16 full-time employees. When asked what business lessons she learned her father, Ellen replied, ‘Work hard. My dad worked six days a week, and he closed the store on Sunday–that was his day off, but he ended up working around the house. He didn’t have a lot of free time. I don’t work as hard anymore, now that we have managers. But it seemed before that I was working all the time.’ She later added, ‘It’s not easy owning your own business. People think it’s easy, but you have to keep up on all the changing laws and regulations for different products, and you have to worry about finding and keeping good employees.’ Norris pays competitive salaries, provides medical benefits and offers a 401-K plan, she said. Although business is good, thanks to a loyal customer base and continued sales to general contractors and remodelers working throughout the Palisades, the challenge is to stay ahead of the curve by keeping the store stocked with quality merchandise while anticipating ‘what people will need and what they will want in six months when we do our seasonal ordering,’ Grant said. ‘That’s also one of the fun things in this business.’ Even then, there’s no predicting the sudden demand for space heaters during the recent cold snap, nor the persistent lack of demand for rainy-day staples like plastic sheeting and Henry’s roof tar. But ‘hoses are moving,’ Grant said, along with other lawn and garden supplies as people are encouraged to work outside in dry winter weather. What is the number one selling product at Norris? ‘Light bulbs, storage containers and plumbing supplies are the mainstays,’ Grant said. ‘We’re selling the new energy-saving fluorescent bulbs, which are a little more expensive initially, but will save people money over time.’ While managing to attract customers with the appeal of staying in the Palisades to shop and finding good service (‘Go to Home Depot and try to get anybody to help you,’ Grant said), the owners of Norris Hardware are realistic. ‘The family-owned, privately owned hardware store is a dinosaur’it’s going away’and I think it’s going to be a big loss to communities everywhere,’ Grant said. ‘But our business was around and survived the Depression, so it’s a pretty decent business’a good business.’ Looking ahead to 2018 when the lease comes due, he laughed and said, ‘I hope we have 10 more years in us!’
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