Hobie Alter’s dad was fed up with the wood shavings making a mess of his Laguna Beach garage.
So he bought a lot in nearby Dana Point – back when there was only a gas station and a small hotel with a Mexican restaurant in the unincorporated beach town – and built a small garage where his son could build surfboards.
And a surf business was born.
It was 70 years ago on Feb. 14 that Alter opened the doors to that small workshop – the board maker-turned-inventor would go on to revolutionize the sport of surfing and beyond.
“He was just a solid guy in every respect – honest, dependable, smart and great with his hands,” said Dick Metz, a longtime friend from Laguna Beach who would become business partners with Alter. “He could build stuff nobody else thought of.”
Hobie Surf Shops is celebrating this year’s milestone starting on Wednesday by giving away 70th anniversary custom hats to customers. There’s a line up of events planned for the year, including a June showing of a film about Hobie team riders by Conner Eck, then in August a collaboration with surf brand Florence for a showing of “Endless Summer 2,” with special guests Pat O’Connell and Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, stars of the cult-classic movie.
In November, the festivities will continue with a vintage collector club gathering with hundreds of old boards on display.
Alter, who died in 2014, was raised in Ontario, visiting Laguna Beach after his dad bought a vacation home in the coastal town for summer breaks while he was still in high school.
Metz, who grew up in Laguna Beach but went to college in Ontario, met Alter at the inland school in 1947 and a few years later the two recognized each other on the sand during one summer break.
Alter had taken up surfing and wanted a board of his own, so he was told where to get the wood at a factory up in Los Angeles.
Back then, there were no surf shops to simply walk into and buy a board. You had to have someone make it – which could take months – or build it yourself. Alter decided to make his own.
While he didn’t quite like that first board he made in 1950, he kept at it. Then, others started asking him to make boards.
In those days, there were only 100 or so guys who surfed, Metz said. But surfing and its lifestyle was catching on – for the next three summers, Alter made nearly 90 boards, earning a reputation for himself as the region’s go-to board builder.
“Each summer it grew a bit,” Metz, now 94, recalled. “His dad, fortunately, was impressed.”
So in 1954, father Hobart funded his son’s first surf shop, building a small garage that had a lift-up door
“Hobie’s dad saw his kid had a talent and there was a certain demand for it,” Metz said.
It wasn’t a retail shop. There were no boards on display. No surf clothes on sale. Just a small place where Alter would shape boards during the day, but also a clubhouse of sorts where riders would hang out post surf sessions, Metz said.
Alter wasn’t so much into the business side of things, so he sold the building to Metz and entrusted his friend to own and operate the Hobie Surf Shops bearing his name that popped up around the world.
“He didn’t like business, he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to invent stuff,” Metz said.
The duo had a business relationship of an earlier era, when deals were made with a handshake.
“If it’s good for you, it’s good for me,” Alter would say.
“You trusted people,” Metz said.
Alter was busy making and creating, figuring out how foam could be used in surfboards. He later created Hobie Cats with the same idea – using lightweight material for the catamarans that the masses could carry and afford. He and friend Gordon “Grubby” Clark tinkered with chemicals to perfect the polyethylene foam still used in most surfboards today.
The Hobie name grew in popularity in the ’60s as he and Metz opened more surf shops around the world, including Hawaii, and his reach went beyond surfing and into the sailing world with the invention of the Hobie Cat.
“Hobie to me was a brilliant guy,” Metz said. “He just had an imagination and ingenuity.”
Alter’s original shop is where Cali Costa, a Mexican restaurant, now occupies, with some old photos and memorabilia near the entrance that give a nod to the board shaper’s old shop, said Kris Carlow, Hobie Surf Shop surfboard production and marketing manager.
The second-ever surfboard that Alter shaped can be seen at the Laguna Beach location, and other early era boards are on display at the Dana Point shop.
At one point, there were 22 Hobie Surf Shop stores around the world, though mostly in California and Hawaii. Today, just three remain: Dana Point, Laguna Beach and San Clemente.
The people running the Hobie shops try to maintain the same level of loyalty to customers the stores have been known for through the decades, Carlow said.
Alter built a brand that spans generations, a family-like organization, he added. “We’re stoked to continue his legacy.”
Source: Orange County Register
Be First to Comment