A cut above the rest

Dwight Eisenhower was president. The average cost of a new house was $12,400 and Hawaii became the 50th state in the union.

That same year, 1959, 60 years ago last month, Louis “Louie the Clip” Cicero started working as a barber on Shelter Island. A haircut cost $1.75.

“Geez,” Louie said with a laugh one morning recently at his Grand Avenue shop. “Where does the time go?”

Shelter Island has stayed the same and changed in widely different ways since he started cutting hair here, he said. One example of not much changing is that Louie has been in the same shop for six decades and seen generations of Islanders pass through his chair.

On the other hand, the ferries have improved a lot since he first started his business.

“When Louie first got here people were getting to the Island in wooden boats,” said Anita, his wife and business partner.

Unimpressed with the size of “that little wooden boat on his first crossing,” Louie thought, “Geez, are we going to make it across?”

As Charity Robey noted in a Reporter profile several years ago, the shop was built in 1926 as a bakery and gift shop. It was called the Gingerbread House, the first stop for churchgoers coming down from Our Lady of the Isle after services on Sunday mornings.

In 1946, it became a barbershop and in 1959 Louie arrived as assistant to the new owner. Although he’d grown up in East Hampton, he had never set foot on the Island.

At the shop one morning this summer, Anita remembered a time when “guys used to grow their hair down to their back.”

Her husband’s memory goes back further. When he started cutting hair, young men were rocking Elvis-style pompadours.

Another thing that’s remained the same in his years of barbering is, he said, that people like to talk when they’re getting their hair cut, and the barbershop is not just a business, but a community hub.

“Some days we have a grandfather, father, and son all waiting in line for a haircut, or a shave,” Anita said.

In 1984, the couple built an addition and Anita began her beauty shop. “I inherited some of the wives of the guys who were coming in,” she said. “For 25 years, I had a career with those ladies and, just like the men, they were fascinating people. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

The shop and Las Vegas are similar, it seems. “Many stories have been told through the years,” she said. “Only these walls know them all.”

While most of the customers at Louie and Anita’s shop have only known two barbers on Shelter Island, that’s about to change, as Mary Boeklen is set to slowly take over much of the day-to-day business. As Louie and Anita look at retirement,

Mary has ensured that the barbershop can accommodate the steady beat of Shelter Islanders looking for their next cut.

“She’s a godsend,” Anita said.

Mary has been cutting and styling hair for almost 30 years; an expert in women’s and men’s hair, she also has helped style hair for many of Shelter Island School thespians for the school’s plays.

“I really love what I do,” Mary said.

In the shop, she hopes to pick up where Louie and Anita have left off, but that’s more difficult than it first appears. It takes being a talented barber and filling the unofficial roles as town historian, mayor, and confessor, positions held by Louie and Anita for 60 years.

On the morning the Reporter visited, Mary was seamlessly filling those duties.

A a father and son waited in line while another Islander was getting a shave, the six-decade ritual of a community coming together was in good hands.