Boulevard’s Oldest Shop Still an Oasis of Stability

Its original neighbors have drifted off like smoke in the wind--giving way to mini-malls and office buildings and glitzy boutiques.

The oldest shop on Ventura Boulevard has changed very little in 62 years, however.

Gus’ Smoke Shop has occupied the same tiny clapboard storefront in Sherman Oaks since 1927. And its owner says it’s there to stay, no matter how fast the pace of redevelopment becomes along the 17-mile-long boulevard.

“Every week, someone is in here wanting to buy the place,” says Jim Hurwitz, who is Gus’ fourth owner. “I say I’m not interested. I bought this place because I was afraid it might be sold to a developer. It has too much charm and character to be turned into another mall.”

That kind of talk is music to the ears of Sherman Oaks residents, who have so far fought a losing battle to keep neighborhood shops in their community.

Despite the objections of homeowners, a row of 1940s-era boulevard shops several blocks west of Gus’ are being evicted this month to make way for a new development.

Gus’ started out as Boyd’s Smoke Shop. Along with cigars and candy, the owner sold live chickens at his 10-foot-wide store, Hurwitz said.

The shop was owned for 10 years starting in the mid-1930s by Gus Pfender. The next owner was Norman Fudge, an Englishman who sold it to Hurwitz in 1985.

“I’d been a customer for 10 years, and it bothered me to hear developers talking about whether they should tear this place down from the front to the back, or from the back to the front,” said Hurwitz, a Calabasas resident who had been an assistant vice president of Aaron Brothers Art Marts.

Hurwitz, 38, said he also was worried about losing his supply of favorite pipe tobacco, Ancient Mariner, if the store fell to developers.

It’s sturdy enough to stand up to time, however; Gus’ is constructed of durable redwood. The closet that Boyd used as a coop for his chickens is now used for the storage of tobacco and the repair of pipes. “They say that when this place was remodeled, feathers came out of the ceiling,” Hurwitz said.

At the rear of the shop, in an area once used as Boyd’s living quarters, a log helps hold up the roof. A blue-tinted 1920s gas stove that is still used to heat coffee stands in the corner.

Shop manager Dennis Spike and clerk Chuck Fayne share space in the front of the store with a 40-year-old wooden Indian, 1,000 pipes, containers of 125 tobacco blends and 5,000 cigars. Behind the counter is a brass-plated 1910 cash register that is sometimes used.

“It works perfectly,” Fayne said of the hand-cranked machine. “Of course, at the end of a busy day, you’d have a right arm the size of Cleveland.”

Hurwitz said the shop draws second- and third-generation customers.

“Many of the middle-aged guys used to come in here as kids and buy penny candies. Now they come in for $3 or $4 cigars. Lots of people have said they used to come in with their grandfathers.”

Customer Jim Benjamin of Sherman Oaks grew up in the area and remembers Gus’ as one of the few stores he’d pass by when he traveled from Coldwater Canyon to Tarzana in the late 1930s to buy cider.

“This store’s like a second home to me,” Benjamin said Tuesday. “Some people drop in here every afternoon. It’s like old home week. It has the greatest atmosphere in the world.”

Customer Valentine Mayer of Studio City said the familiar surroundings are appropriate. “Smoking is centuries old. It’s only fitting there should be some real character here,” he said.

“I come here not only for the quality product but for the friendship. It’s almost like a gentleman’s club here.”

Such atmosphere helped Hurwitz win a tobacco industry trade publication’s award as 1988 pipe retailer of the year. He said he has managed to increase business by 300% since taking over the store--despite the general downturn of the tobacco business and tightening restrictions on smoking in public.

When Hurwitz tried last year to sponsor a balloon release at his 12-year-old daughter’s school, officials balked at having a cigar shop’s name imprinted on the balloons.

“We’ll stay as long as it’s legal to sell tobacco,” he vowed. “We want to keep alive the tradition that this building represents.”