By Dan Linehan
Special to Delaware Business Times
The House of Watches and Fine Jewelry never hesitated to change with the times. They changed with their city, adding a location on Concord Pike as retail activity shifted away from downtown Wilmington. They changed with their customers, offering solar-powered watches and chasing jewelry’s cyclical fashions. They changed with the technology, marketing online and texting jewelry photos that might catch the eye of longtime customers.
But after 75 years, time has caught up with the House of Watches and Fine Jewelry, owned by two pairs of Bermans: Bob and Debbie, plus Gil and Mardian. All four are approaching their seventh decade
and their four children have for the most part chosen other pursuits.
The business was so connected to the family that they didn’t strongly consider selling it. A few factors led them to close the business, including a purchase offer on their Washington Street location from Christiana Care, which operates Wilmington Hospital across the street.
Plus, three-quarters of a century seemed a round enough number to end on. Looking back fondly on
their decades in the business, the two couples seem genuinely sad to turn the corner.
Their first House
Ted Berman, Bob’s and Gil’s father, served in the Army during World War II, repairing scopes and other optical equipment. He sent some of his wages back home, and his wife, Gerry, used them to open the House of Watches in 1944.
At the time, there were dozens of jewelers on Washington Street, then the commercial center of Wilmington. As Ted Berman was a horologist, or expert in clocks and watches, the shop originally focused on timepieces. The business expanded in scope and appended its name with “and Fine Jewelry” in the ’60s.
Both Ted and Gerry were natural salespeople, outgoing and gregarious, and the relationships they formed with customers often lasted for multiple generations. As the shop was located across the street from Wilmington Hospital, then called Delaware Hospital, it saw a steady stream of doctors and nurses.
Among these doctors was Dr. S. Ward Casscells, an orthopedic surgeon who would find himself searching for last-minute gifts, said his son, Dr. Chris Casscells.
When he was at Yale as an undergraduate, the younger Casscells had a hard time waking up for early classes. So, in the early ’70s, his father bought him one of the first digital watches so he could sleep with an alarm on his wrist. He and his family have remained customers to this day.
Meanwhile, Delawareans’ retail habits changed.
In 1968, Concord Mall opened, reflecting the suburban movement of retail commerce. Ted got his hair cut at Joe’s Barber Shop, at 2505 Concord Pike, and the building was expanded to accommodate a second location for the Bermans’ jewelry business in 1974. The new location was also better-positioned to attract out-of-state travelers looking to avoid paying sales tax.
Mardian Berman began working at the Concord Pike location in 1975. Within a few months, she was engaged to Gil, and they married the following year.
Since then, the family has kept up with jewelry trends, such as solar-powered watches and platinum engagement bands (yellow gold is coming back, they say). They also dealt with headwinds, including the opening of nearby jewelry shops, price competition from chain and online stores and the opening of Christiana Mall.
Ted and Gerry Berman retired in 1980. She died in 1989, him in 1997.
Building social capital
Eventually, the battery died in the young Dr. Casscells’ newfangled digital watch. When he took it to the Bermans’ Washington Street shop, they said he had free battery replacements for life because the watch was bought in their shop.
This didn’t just earn them a customer for life; it also turned Dr. Casscells into an evangelist for far-flung customers like a soon-to-be betrothed son of his friends from Boca Raton.
“It was a no-tax state, but the other thing was the Bermans took great care of him,” Dr. Casscells said.
As a longtime member of the Rotary Club, Bob Berman often met prospective customers like Margaret Munley, a dentist. She doesn’t remember exactly what first led her to the shop, but she and the Bermans, especially Debbie, became friends.
Far from simply procuring new pieces, Debbie became something of a full-service jeweler who answered questions Munley hadn’t known to ask. Once, when Munley was vigorously shaking her hands to dry them off, she flung her bracelet. So Debbie showed her a wrist guard to keep her bracelet secure, a solution Munley hadn’t imagined.
Getting along
While Gil spent much of his childhood in his father’s shop and never worked anyplace else, his brother, Bob, initially planned on a different career. But when he married Debbie and started a family, he looked for work and found it in the family business in 1970.
Ted and Gerry’s third son, Michael, became an attorney and died in 2010.
The Bermans are often asked how they can work with their family, but they say the arrangement has largely gone smoothly. In general, Bob and Debbie run the Washington Street location, while Gil and Mardian focus on the Concord Pike location.
Because she worked as an accountant prior to marrying Bob, Debbie handles much of the business’ bookkeeping. Though everyone works with customers, it’s not Gil’s favorite part of the business.
It’s not as if he doesn’t appreciate customers, but he has always been more comfortable repairing a watch in the bench in back than schmoozing.
But for the most part all four owners share duties and have avoided major disagreements by compromising.
“We always remember we’re family,” Bob Berman said.
The next generation
The two couples have four children, all boys, among them. Though Gil and Mardian’s oldest son, Marc, works as a jeweler in another state, none has expressed an interest in taking over the business.
Bob Berman said the family would have liked to have found a successor in the next generation, but only if that’s what they wanted to do. The elder Bermans say they have no regrets on this front and that they didn’t pressure their kids to inherit the business.
There seems like another generational shift here; there is more cultural permission today for children to choose their own path, they agree. It may be no coincidence, in other words, that both Bob and Gil Berman inherited their father’s business, but all four of their children chose their own path.
The Bermans will close both locations at the end of December, and are offering a going-out-of-business sale until then.
When longtime customers stop by and see the sign announcing the sale, they tend to congratulate the owners on the well-earned respite. But the assumption that the owners are eager to lay down their burden
is misplaced, for the most part.
“It’s hard for us to hear when we’ve been so happy,” Debbie said. It’s not as hard to hear for Gil – he’s looking forward to retirement.
