Much-loved Vaughan barbershop finds new home

Yorkregion.com
June 26, 2014
Adam Martin-Robbins

The small-town look and feel of Woodbridge Avenue has largely vanished, replaced by towering brick-and-glass condominiums, modern shops and offices.

But a tiny piece of the street’s past — the 95-year-old yellow cottage that housed a barbershop where families for generations went to get a haircut — is being preserved.

And it’s all thanks to the efforts of a few dedicated residents and the local developer who bought the property where the cottage sat for nearly 80 years.

“I’m glad that, at least, the bulldozers didn’t take it down,” Tom Lazenkas, who operated Tom’s Barber Shop and Men’s Hairstyling at 96 Woodbridge Ave. for 44 years, said moments before it was hauled away on a truck to its new location at the Woodbridge fairgrounds.

“I have fantastic memories (of this shop) and I’m going to miss it in some way. … I’m in a little bit more modern place right now, but it’s certainly not the same. This was like the barbershop that I grew up in — I was 23 years old when I came here.”

The cottage was originally built in 1919 on an Elders Mills’ farm, owned by George Rowntree, to house the hired help.

Woodbridge barber Alvin (Allie) Robb purchased it in 1936, after reportedly having a falling out with another barber in town who he’d been working alongside, so he could open his own shop.

Robb hired John Nelson (Pop) Snider, a trusted friend and farmer, to move the cottage to the village and place it next to the home where he lived with his wife, Ethel, and their two children, Gwen and Arnie.

Today, their daughter Gwen Gray says she has too many fond memories of the barbershop to recount — and at least one memory that’s, well, not so fond.

Before it arrived, two of her uncles, who were carpenters, had dug a cellar for the shop and placed large planks across the top.

She was about five years old at the time and was playing on one of the planks.

One of her uncles warned her to be careful, but she didn’t listen.

“I was straddling it and the next thing I knew, I woke up on the chesterfield in our house,” Gray, 83, recalled. “I fell down and knocked myself out.”

She also remembers that her father would often open the shop at 8 a.m. and work until 10 p.m. because many of his customers were farmers who came into town after putting in a full day’s work in the fields.

“Dad would be always dressed in his white pants and white shirt and, at that time, I think he charged 25 cents for a haircut,” she said.

Needless to say, Gray is thrilled the building is being preserved.

“It’s wonderful for me because my dad’s name goes on,” she said. “He took a great interest in the community. He followed the sports teams. They called him the trainer (because) he would rush getting the shop closed up so he could get to the hockey games and lacrosse games. And he used to have a bag of oranges and some towels and some water. It was all part of the shop being in the community.”

When her father passed away in 1962, her mother, Ethel, decided she would only lease the building for use as a barbershop. 

Joe Yanas moved in first, followed in 1969 by George Tsigoulis and Lazenkas, who operated George and Tom’s Barbershop.

Shortly after, Lazenkas took over and it became Tom’s Barbershop and Men’s Hairstyling.

He worked alongside barbers Frank Caprara and Vito Lisi until July 2013, when he moved the business across the street.

“I have a family right now, the Hayhoe family, I’ve been serving for four generations,” Lazenkas, a Thornhill resident, said. “I have met a lot of mothers and a lot of children throughout the years and I’m in a lot of children’s photo albums.”

Ethel sold the property, including her home and the barbershop, to local developer Norberto Marocco in 2006. She was 103 years old at the time.

Marocco says he had a lot of respect for her and agreed to let Ethel stay in the house, and allowed Lazenkas to continue operating the barbershop in the cottage until he was ready to start building a condo complex there, known as The Clarence.

Ethel died a short time later and her home was eventually demolished.

The barbershop was slated to follow suit in 2013, but when long-time Woodbridge resident Linda Mae Maxey found out, she leapt into action.

She contacted Marocco and asked if he’d donate it to the Woodbridge Agricultural Society.

He agreed.

“I felt it was something very important to them and I wanted to make sure that I would not disappoint them so it became important for me, too,” Marocco said.

Ken Maynard, another long-time resident, took on the task of procuring approvals from the city to move the building and sought out an experienced moving company to do the job, Laurie McCulloch Building Moving of Whitby.

The whole process took more than a year to complete.   

Maynard, who grew up in Woodbridge and used to get his hair cut at the shop as a youngster, recalls there was a painting of Gwen hanging on one wall of the barbershop.

“I remember it so well,” he said. “(She) was quite an attractive-looking girl.”

The barbershop will now sit in the centre of the fairgrounds where it will serve, at least initially, as a storage facility until the agricultural society can figure out the best use for it. 

“It’s very exciting for the village,” said Maxey, as the movers prepared to haul it away. “It’s a sweet little building.”

The Tom’s Barbershop sign that hangs on the front of the building will remain in place and the plan is to have it adorn one front window in honour of Allie Robb and his barbershop.

A binder will be put together so people visiting the fairgrounds can jot down their memories of the barbershop.

“We’re going to set it up as a second office in the future, maybe, and a first aid station,” said Maxey, a director with the Woodbridge Agricultural Society. “It’s going to be a little hub of sweetness.”