Larson's at 75

SANDPOINT — Larson’s Good Clothes has chalked up a monumental achievement — 75 years in business in the same downtown location.

“And I’ve been here 51 of those years,” said owner Dick Larson, whose family is passing the baton to a fourth generation.

Larson and his wife, Linda, already have named their daughter, Lindsey, as Sandpoint store manager. She jokes that she won’t really take over the reins until the day she walks in to find her father slumped over in his office chair, having met his great reward while doing the thing he loves.

True enough, Dick Larson enjoys his work. He can count the number of vacations he’s taken on one hand and not use too many fingers, at that. His first taste of the clothing trade came in 1964, when he went to work for his father, Lloyd. He recalls that it was more of a mandate than a personal choice at the time.

“I think my dad made me go to work,” Larson said, adding that he worked a 48-hour week and was paid $1 an hour for his labors. “After taxes, my take-home pay was $43.”

While most people would consider that a packed work schedule, Larson said it wasn’t until 10 years later, when he came back after graduating from college in 1974, that he started working full-time at the store.

Times and tastes have changed since he first learned the ropes, which included keeping books, stocking shelves, hemming clothes and measuring men for suits.

“When I started working for my dad, we carried 300 suits and 150 sports coats,” said Larson. “Now we don’t carry any of them. People dressed up more then than they do today.

“But I can still measure a guy for a suit,” he went on. “And I still consider myself a haberdasher – that’s a real word.”

The Larson name first showed up at this same First Avenue address in 1940, but it was associated with clothing sales in Sandpoint before then.

The story begins when brothers Thor and Chris Larson emigrated from Norway to work at the Humbird Lumber Mill in the early 1900s.  It didn’t take long for Chris to realize the timber trade was not for him, so he joined forces with Ole Jennestad to form Jennestad & Larson Co. and enter the clothing business.

After several decades in partnership, the two men parted ways in 1940, when, as Dick Larson explained, “Jennestad kept the building and Larson kept the business.” The timing couldn’t have been better, as clothier J.A. Foster was planning to move his family away from Sandpoint in order to find a suitable young man to marry his daughters.

“He wanted to get them away from the riff raff of Sandpoint boys,” Larson said, adding that the decision might have had something to do with his uncle, Dick, for whom he was named, who was dating one of the Foster girls. So it was that in 1940, the Foster sign came down on First Avenue and was replaced by a new one — Larson’s Men’s & Boy’s Wear.

By 1960, Lloyd bought out his uncle Thor’s shares in the business and embarked upon an action-packed, 20-year period of expansion. In 1965, he purchased Marjean’s, a women’s clothing store next door that was owned by Page Parsons and Martha Wyatt. After a bit of remodeling in that space, the store took on a new and longer name: Larson’s Men’s & Boy’s Wear and the Princess Shop.

In 1973, Lloyd bought the downtown building from James and Page Parsons and, within a year, started a major renovation that opened the second floor to retail sales. Locals will recall the 1970s as a period when Larson’s was known as the place to go for men’s and women’s clothing and shoes, as well as western wear. Advertising that last category was a towering, fiberglass cowboy fashioned by Boots Reynolds — a statue that still lingers among the Levi’s on the top floor of the current store.

At the close of the decade, Lloyd Larson was spending more time in Arizona, while his son, Dick, began to take on more of the day-to-day duties of running the business. Like his father before him, Dick wasted no time in putting his own stamp on the family business. He led a 1983 remodel that included two shifts working virtually straight through for five months. At the end of that time, the drop ceiling and the wall between the men’s and women’s departments were gone and a mezzanine was added to create three floors of merchandise space.

Today, the Larsons own three stores — the original location in downtown Sandpoint, as well as stores in Bonners Ferry and Grangeville, which opened in 2000 and 2010, respectively. In the period between those openings, the owner was first challenged by competition from big box stores and the Internet, followed by the recession. Those economic forces prompted him to burnish his sales and management skills and join a buying group that opened up several new lines of merchandise. Those moves paid off, giving the stores new energy, direction and selection.

It’s unlikely that the original Larson brothers would recognize the store that still bears their name. Worsted wool has been replaced by modern, lightweight fabrics that are warmer and more comfortable. Socks and gloves that once came in specific sizes now come in a more generalized fit. Rows of buttons and zippers have been replaced by convenient Velcro flaps.

Lloyd’s mission statement read: “Quality merchandise at reasonable prices.” His son updated and personalized his version of the declaration: “A quality driven, value-oriented company with an attitude and commitment to customer service.”

“The most consistent thing I can say about my business is that it’s inconsistent,” the owner said. “It constantly changes and, if you don’t keep up, it’ll blow right past you.”

Shopping habits, meanwhile, haven’t changed all that much in 75 years.

“For the ladies, shopping is a safari,” Larson said, comparing the process to a buying trek that covers a lot of ground on the way to its destination. “For the guys, it’s a hunting trip – they want to bag it and go home.”

Lindsey, who first started working at the store in 1995 at age 15, recalls that there were no computers and recordkeeping was still done by hand. These days, she oversees the online and social media presence for the business, along with managing the flagship store. She fully plans to carry on the family tradition when her parents decide to retire. The transition, she pointed out, won’t involve any groundbreaking changes or major upheavals.

“It works,” she said. “Why fix something that’s not broken?”

As she makes that statement in the back office of the store, her dad leans back in his chair and smiles. Looking at him, you get the impression that he isn’t in any hurry to leave the helm.

“I still get up at five in the morning, I still work seven days a week and I still love working here,” he said.

Larson’s Good Clothes is located at 327 N. First Ave., in downtown Sandpoint. For more information, visit them online at: www.larsonsgoodclothes.com