Company: Harvey Ltd.
Owner: Harvey Lapides
Location: 114 Waterman Street
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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Year Founded: 1949
Employees: Seven
Type of Business: Retail clothing
Annual revenues: WND
The folks at Harvey Ltd. are proud that they’re selling fine clothing to the grandchildren of their first customers, a circumstance which says a lot about both Harvey Ltd. and the current retail landscape.
In today’s marketplace, third generation customers are like gold to specialty stores like Harvey Ltd.
In an era of mall sprawl and national chains, Harvey Ltd. seems an anomaly. Tucked away in tasteful quarters at 114 Waterman Street, the store has been a fixture on the back side of College Hill for more than a half century. And it’s still owned and operated by Harvey Lapides, who joined his brother Phil in the business right after graduating from Brown in 1950.
Over the years – the decades, really – Harvey Ltd. has withstood the challenges of the malls and the chains, as well as recessions and style changes. It has prevailed because its stock in trade has never wavered: quality garments shaped by quality tailoring.
Plus the familiarity factor.
"Ninety percent of the people who come in here," said store manager Hank Lesperance, a Lapides friend for more than 30 years, "one of us knows on a first name basis."
And most of the people who come into the store will buy something, Lapides added.
"They know what they’re looking for, and they know we carry it."
Customer loyalty, in fact, is the store’s major strength, supplemented as it is by direct mail contacts with some 3,000 clients and prospects – periodic reminders that Harvey stands ever ready to adorn them with the right suit, shirt, or jacket.
When Phil Lapides opened the store in late 1949 – soon to be joined by his brother – he had a waiting clientele.
"The students were good customers," Harvey recalled. "They all wore coats and ties, and they wanted the Ivy look."
Freshman week and fraternity rush week "were like Christmas," with the new young collegians flocking into the store to buy tweeds and button-downs and rep ties – stylishly conservative threads calculated to impress their new classmates and prospective fraternity brothers.
"We were like a club," Lapides recalled. "The kids would come in here to hang out. We employed a number of them part time."
Then came the social upheaval of the ’60s, when sales to young people tailed off sharply and Harvey began to develop a "city business" that catered to a more adult demographic.
The ’70s brought the unfortunate "peacock look" characterized by bellbottoms, checked jackets, and wide, rainbow-hued neckware. It was in this period that Harvey Ltd. underwent extensive remodeling to achieve a more contemporary ambience.
Things picked up again in the ’80s, when the store sold "a lot of suits and sports coats" to a new, upscale business crowd. In more recent years, men’s clothing has grown increasingly informal, and it’s not unusual to see people dining in fine restaurants in casual sports shirts and sweaters.
All of which, Lapides conceded, has made things a bit tougher. Nevertheless, he pointed out, many businessmen still wear suits and jackets and prefer stores like his to the big, impersonal mall shops.
"We occupy a niche based on quality clothes and services," Lapides reiterated.
Now a trim 75, Lapides lives in Barrington with his wife Ellie. They’re the parents of three daughters and grandparents six times over. Brother Phil died several years ago.
Has it been a good life? On balance, yes, Lapides mused. Still, he admits to a faint twinge of regret that he has spent his whole adult life doing one thing. Which may not have been true, he smiled, "if only I’d been able to hit the curve ball."
It seems young Harvey Lapides was a pretty good centerfielder in his undergraduate days at Brown. Good enough, in fact, to be invited out to South Dakota by Brown Coach Lefty Lefebvre one summer to play for the independent Minot Monarchs. Later, while still in school, he received an offer to play in the professional Northern League. When Brown Athletic Director Paul Mackesey heard about it, he warned Lapides that he stood to lose his college athletic eligibility. So Lapides declined the offer, finished his playing career at Brown, and, taking a realistic view of his struggles with the curve ball, decided to join Phil in the clothing business. (Among his Ivy League opponents was a young Yale first baseman named George Bush, who also abandoned baseball for other things.)
It’s been a long journey from the birth of Harvey Ltd. to the new millenium, but Harvey Lapides has no immediate plans to pack it in.
"We’ll do this as long as it works," he said, "and as long as it’s fun."
