Isabell Gerhart: RETURNING HOME
This story originally ran in the Post on Feb. 10, 1991. It has been cut to fill this space.
TWO WEEKS BEFORE the opening of her new store in River Oaks Plaza, Isabell Gerhart steps gingerly across a sidewalk plank like a tightrope walker.
A workman offers a balancing hand until Gerhart deposits her bright red Ferragamo flats safely on the white marble floor still covered with protective cardboard.
On this particular Saturday morning the sawdust is still flying as Gerhart, who has dressed thousands of Houston society women for events as far back as the opening of Glenn McCarthy’s Shamrock Hotel in 1949, shows a visitor around her new boutique.
“I’m coming home,” she says more than once. It’s her favorite expression these days.
For her there is a childlike sense of excitement surrounding the move from the Galleria to River Oaks. Gerhart says butterflies are common and perhaps here to stay until her elegant new store with it’s arched windows and sky-lit colonnades opens officially Thursday.
Some 45 years ago Isabell Gerhart opened her first specialty boutique in Houston on the edge of River Oaks, where the Avalon Drug Store sits today. An instant hit with the city’s socially prominent women, Gerhart soon expanded and moved to a larger store on River Oaks Boulevard four years later. But in 1971, developer Gerald Hines enticed the popular Gerhart into his new shopping palace, the Galleria.
“Gerald Hines decided he needed me to pioneer the Galleria,” Gerhart recalls. “I’m a pioneer.” In fact, Gerhart believes she was the initial inspiration — “the maverick store” — which sparked such established downtown merchants as Sakowitz, Battlestein’s and Neiman Marcus “to go west” from downtown to the suburbs.
But, Gerhart’s 20-year-lease in the Galleria is up this month, and she’s decided it’s time to return to the River Oaks area, where she grew up and where her odyssey into the world of fashion began four decades ago.
It’s been an adventure that has taken her to New York several times a year and to Europe regularly to buy the gowns which Houston’s social set has worn to a host of charity balls and presidential and gubernatorial inaugural balls. Ima Hogg shopped at her store. Nellie Connally and B.A. Bentsen still do. Actresses Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, Ginger Rogers and Lisa Hartman have been known to drop by.
Old-line Houston families have relied on Gerhart to outfit wedding parties and put together trousseaus for several generations now. Most who know her retail style say she’s not just an owner but a presence in the store who insists on running it with a hands-on approach.
Gerhart has seen many family-owned businesses come and go in Houston. She and her husband, Norwin, the chief executive officer of the company since 1948, have weathered several of the city’s booms and busts, managing to stay afloat. Norwin Gerhart, who is also the past president of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, offers a matter-of-fact explanation for their survival.
“You meet problems day by day,” he says.
And he says of his wife: “She has all the talent in the world, she’s a natural for the business — a terrfic buyer with a photographic memory. She memorizes the fashions when she goes to New York and when the clothes come in she can tell if even a stitch is out of place.”
SIT AND CHAT with Isabell Gerhart for a few minutes and one key to her success becomes clear. Rule No. 1: Pay attention to customers.
On a recent afternoon, she settles into an overstuffed chair surrounded by de la Renta and Scaasi gowns in the couture section of her Galleria store. She may be talking about the store’s early days but her eyes dart around the room following today’s shoppers.
“I love people,” she says, explaining why she enjoys her work. “And if you love people you learn about their families and what they want.” She starts to explain how her store carries clothes for “the thoroughbred” and fun, trendy clothes.
But her eye suddenly rests on a lone gray-haired woman who has been browsing unattended for a while. Not a saleswoman in sight. Gerhart sprints from her chair in midsentence and asks in a friendly voice if the woman needs assistance.
“We pride ourselves on our one-on-one service,” she says. And often she notes that she has bought styles with certain customers in mind because she knows their tastes so well.
Gerhart excitedly talks about ambitious plans for personal services in her new store. She will send limos to hotels for out-of-towners, offer a private room for viewing exclusive fashion videos, provide delivery and send personal shoppers who will make office and house calls to clients to bring them fashions.
While everyone decries the lack of service these days, Gerhart’s customers say that has been her specialty over the years — catering to clients.
But don’t ask Gerhart about the business end of the store. That’s Norwin’s department; Isabell Gerhart calls her husband a financial wizard. “I don’t know anything about finances. Just give me a credit card. I love to buy. I love to go to the markets. I don’t think I’ve ever been to one yet that I wasn’t as excited as the first time I went.” She’s still as active in the store as she was when it first opened.
Gary Gerhart, 33, who became president of the company in August, believes his parents’ skills complement each other. “Mom’s forte is an innate sense of fashion. She knows what will sell. Dad knows how to merchandise, stock and pay for everything. The two make an ideal team,” he says.
Among her friends and clients, Isabell Gerhart is known for her perpetual optimism and upbeat nature, which may account for making it in topsy-turvy economies.
And, there’s all that hard work she put in over the years.
While other women in her social set were out “doing lunch,” she was tending the company store— a working woman long before it was fashionable - and eventually raising four children along the way.
If she was ahead of her time, Gerhart doesn’t care to dwell on such facts.
“It just came naturally, working and raising a family,” she says, dismissing any brouhaha about her choices.
The idea for opening a dress store came about quite by chance.
Isabell Gerhart recalls that one night in 1946, following World War II, her husband, (Norwin), then a petroleum engineer, came home and asked if she wanted to open a dress store in the River Oaks Avalon Center. His friend was looking for tenants.
“Tell him yes, that might be fun,” Gerhart recalls saying. “I think I’ll walk where angels fear to tread.”
They used all their savings, and Isabell Gerhart opened her store with no experience whatsoever.
What Gerhart may have lacked in retailing knowledge she made up for with enthusiasm and a love of fashion. But she says the first days of the store were rocky.
Initially she tried to recruit a friend to help open the store and sell the merchandise.
Gerhart, somewhat desperate, told her: “I’m opening a dress shop and I’ve never sold anything in my life. I don’t even know how to act like a saleslady. Would you come help me? Let’s play like we are salesladies.”
When the doors opened that first day her heart was pounding. A customer walked in and Gerhart found herself ducking behind a showcase in fear. She motioned to her friend and whispered: “You take her.” “No, you take her,” her friend replied.
Today Gerhart can’t remember the outcome of that first potential sale. But she recalls with fondness the homey atmosphere she created in her store, frequently serving sherry and coffee to customers who came to browse.
Not only were people in Houston surprised by the store’s early success, but her suppliers in New York were amazed, she remembers.
“They would wonder, ‘Who is that little girl, opening up in the suburbs? She’s calling all the time for new merchandise.’ "
Soon Isabell Gerhart became “the place” to shop.
Gerhart smiles and adds in a soft Southern drawl, “I had a wildcat by the tail.”
BOTH ISABELL and Norwin Gerhart are known for their good humor.
Gerhart is fond of joking about her husband’s reserve in their early business days.
“When my first store opened he was so shy and embarrassed. He didn’t want to be in there where ladies were changing clothes. Now he’s in there pulling up their girdles,” she says.
“Not really,” she adds, suddenly worried someone might take her hyperbole seriously.
And when asked the obvious question about how the two have stayed working together and married for all these years, Norwin Gerhart replies: “We are compatible. We converse 24 hours a day and then we are able to relax and have a little toddy for the body.”
After four decades, Isabell Gerhart still exhibits amazing enthusiasm for her business. As she shows a visitor around her new store, she greets the workmen with a cheerful hello. They wave back. The sound of buzz saws fill the air. In one area workers are setting up poles for fur storage. At the entrance, another worker is laying red bricks at the entrance.
Gerhart comes every day to this beehive of activity, wearing her hard hat and sneakers to check out the progress.
Although the store is still unfinished, it’s easy to see the final result will be a grand store, designed by the Houston based Brand + Allen Architects (the company also has built Tiffany & Co., Chanel and Gucci boutiques).
Gerhart’s store has the combined ambience of a River Oaks mansion and a European designer boutique.
A long colonnade lined with marble columns leads to a dramatic staircase at the rear. Overhead skylights let in natural light. The walls are painted a soft beige.
“The store is going to have a comfortable feel almost as if you were going into some very gracious home,” she says, strolling down the central colonnade.
The store is, of course, empty of merchandise, but Gerhart knows in her imagination where everything will be. She points out the shoe salon, the new cosmetics area, daytime and cocktail dress and the couture section.
Her eyes light up as she approaches the five VIP dressing rooms. They’re spacious and restful.
“There will be a little love seat here,” she says, pausing in one room and letting her imagination roam. “You could spend a day in here.”
In the couture section she points out where a tasteful Bombay cabinet will be placed to display her tea sandwiches and sherry. Nearby an antique French fireplace is already installed.
With the opening of the new Gerhart store owner Isabell Gerhart is coming full circle, returning to the neighborhood store she began so many years ago.
As she puts it: “The new store is a continuation of the life that I’ve enjoyed so much and it’s a new beginning.”