Stories From the Chair

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[music introduction]

Jaime Roque: I’m here in the San Fernando Valley, Pacoima specifically, to do a ritual, a routine of mine that I have to do every week. Something that if I don’t do, I just don’t feel like me. I’m getting a haircut.

Hello, my name is Jaime, and welcome to ReCurrent. This week, we are in the San Fernando Valley of California exploring cultural heritage through the lens of a community barbershop.

[music fades out]

Roque: Hello!

Greg Faucett: Hey, how you doing?

Roque: Greg?

Faucett: Yes, how you doing, sir?

Roque: Good. How you doing?

Faucett: I can’t complain. I can’t complain. How you doing?

Roque: Pretty good, It’s so great to meet you.

Faucett: Always, always.

Roque: Appreciate it, So, I’m ready, I’m ready for the cut!

Faucett: Have a seat, give me a couple minutes.

Roque: I started to be my own full-time barber my freshman year of high school because my brother and I were tired of waiting for haircuts every two weeks. Spoiler alert: we weren’t great at first and often had to cover up mistakes with hats. Eventually, we got good enough that I didn’t need to visit a barbershop for over a decade. In that span of time, just as everything in life, things change and barbershops were no exception. They evolved, popping up in garages, bathrooms, and you can even have the barbershop come to you in a fancy mobile converted Sprinter van. But there’s something nostalgic about StylesVille: no appointments, lots of shop talk, nothing but good vibes, and a personal favorite of mine, the smell of fresh pomade.

[music interlude]

I’m with Greg Faucett, a second-generation barber and current owner of StylesVille barbershop and Beauty Salon. As in most barbershops, you can hear lots of sports talk, and I’ve heard some great debates on who’s the GOAT in basketball—ahem, that would be MJ—who’s the GOAT of quarterbacks, and I’ve heard some great talks from customers who feel like they can be the next great GM for the Lakers. This particular day is no different; Greg and I are discussing our favorite football teams and whose future is brighter.

Faucett: Let me clarify something before you go any further.

Roque: Alright?

Faucett: You need to make your future bright, cuz we’re going! The hell you talkin ’bout!

Roque: The 49ers future is bright!

Faucett: Ok, yeah, we’re going, dogg, you gotta get there! We’re going!

So, I’ve been cutting hair for 40—36 years.

Roque: 36 years?

Faucett: Since I graduated from high school in ’86. I’ve been cutting hair since then, it’s the only thing I know. So, me working for anybody else? Never. I don’t know what that is.

Roque: Yeah.

Faucett: I don’t know what that is.

Roque: Walking into StylesVille is like taking a trip back to the past. How barbershops used to be, or at least as I remember them. Greg is a part of a legacy started by his grandparents, the original founders of StylesVille.

Roque: Can I ask you, so, walk me back, so the first StylesVille shop was?

Faucett: Across the street. Oh, how did they get from there to here in ’57? Okay. Back in ’57, basically, let me see, from Glenoaks to Laurel Canyon, both sides of the streets were black-owned businesses. So my grandfather and the owner of this place got close. It was a bar right here. They got to talking. So before he put this business on the market, I guess my grandfather had already put in his ear that he was looking for a business.

Now, let me back you up for a second. Before we bought this, we owned next door already and the business next door, before we owned this. So my grandfather was like, okay, let me do a little monopoly. When you get ready to sell, let me know before you put it on the market. So before he put it on the market, he called my grandfather over here. This was a Saturday. My grandfather talked to him. He said, so I’m getting ready to put my business on the market. You told me to get at you before I put it on the market. So I’m letting you know. My grandfather said, I’ll let you know by Tuesday when we come back to open up. Okay, so that’s Saturday.

My grandmother and grandfather go home. Whoop-de-whoop is selling this business across the street. How can we make this happen? So both of them got a pen and a piece of paper and started writing numbers down. So when they said yeah, my grandfather folded the note back up and slid it to the top of the bar and left it right there until Tuesday morning. So my grandfather sees him open up and he comes over here. He talked to him. My grandfather says, here you go. He opens it up. He said, okay, when do you want your keys? And, I bullshit you not…

Roque: So in the span of a weekend?

Faucett: Basically in the span of a weekend, we end up with this business.

Roque: Beyond the clippers and combs, barbershops like StylesVille play an integral role in community-building and cultural preservation. These spaces often go unnoticed for their profound impact, serving as vital hubs where relationships are nurtured, stories are shared, and traditions are kept alive. The barbershop isn’t just a place to get a haircut; it’s a hub of history, culture, and community, a place where memories and traditions are preserved with each snip of the scissors.

I don’t know. For me, It was always fun going to the barbershop. It was never like, “Oh man, I gotta cut my hair.” No, it was fun. It was fun.

Faucett: You just know you’re gonna be there all day. Yeah, you just know you’re gonna be there all day. If you didn’t get there by a certain time, there was a good chance you were going to be there all day.

Roque: Exactly, but you know what, I think that’s also a good thing because, you know, as men, you got to be around other men. And that, I think, was one of the two-fold things about it. It’s like, okay, you knew you were going to have a good combo. You knew you were going to be chilling with people that you knew. You knew you were going to have a good time. And it was a way to, um, you know, just have your—your guy time, I guess.

Faucett: Basically, yeah. Your man time. With your fellas.

Roque: Yeah. Exactly.

Faucett: Shoot the shit with your boys.

Roque: Uh-huh.

Faucett: One of your boys that you know, that you ain’t seen in a while, lives around somewhere else that comes in, that you every weekend or every two weeks get a haircut, y’all meeting ground, y’all stomping ground, y’all rekindling with each other, y’all kicking…y’all kids get to meet each other because y’all bring y’all kids in. My barbershop is all of that. Yeah. And a bag of tricks. All of that.

Roque: And “all of that”, can be a safe space where men open up, feel understood, and get some informal therapy through real conversations.

Faucett: So when we here, after hours, we just chillin.

Roque: Yeah.

Faucett: How can I put it…we don’t have, as Black people in Pacoima. We have no place to go and hang out. Nowhere.

Roque: Yeah, yeah.

Faucett: Once the barbershop closed, definitely nowhere.

When you start coming to a barbershop and you comfortable with the barbershop and you like the vibe of the barbershop, it’s your second place from home. But it’s like I feel privileged because a lot of things be personal things people tell me. And if you feel comfortable telling me a personal thing about you or your family or your wife or whatever the case may be, I feel I’m kind of special. I’m a therapist.

[music introduction]

Roque: While the legacy of StylesVille Barbershop offers a glimpse into the rich heritage of barbershops, my quest now takes me on a journey back to my roots. Barbershops aren’t just businesses; they are places where personal histories intersect, creating a tapestry of shared experiences. StylesVille shows us how deeply these spaces are woven into the fabric of their communities. But to understand the cultural significance of barbershops, I’m heading to a place close to my heart. Here, I’ll reconnect with a barber who continues his own legacy, while honoring his past.

This is definitely the farthest I have driven for a haircut, I am headed to my hometown which is two hours away from LA.

My dad was my first barber. He used to cut my hair with scissors, very old school style. My dad accidentally cut my ear during one of those cuts, which I still have a scar from, and he would feel really bad about it every time it got brought up. And so shortly after that, we all started going to a barbershop.

The barber had this whole ritual: he wrapped a neck strip around me, draped the cape over my lap, snapped it tight in the back, and he would adjust the chair with a quick pump, tilting me back slightly before spinning me around to get the perfect angle. And it all ended with some fresh pomade in my hair. That’s when I fell in love with the whole experience—the outcome, the feeling of feeling fresh, and looking good.

Roque: What’s up, bro? How are you?

I am with Samuel De Leon, better known as Sammy, in his barbershop, which is actually a converted garage in his house.

Samuel De Leon: I’m 28 years old. I began cutting hair when I was 14 and this coming September, I will have had my professional barber’s license for a decade now.

Roque: I always find it really special when I get a cut from Sammy, not only because I get to visit home but also because there’s a lot of connection with Sammy.

De Leon: My dad was a well known barber. There’s been other barbers that are older than me. And when they find out that I’m his son, they’re like, oh, you’re your Cal’s bo. Around the time I was born, my dad had got his barber’s license—you know, he was taking care of me and I was in a playpen in his barbershop. When I was about eight or nine my dad had me and my brother Danny switch off weekends so we can be a broom boy at the barbershop that he worked at.

Roque: Sammy’s dad, Calixtro De Leon, passed away 13 years ago.

De Leon: I didn’t know until last year when I had met you that my dad had cut your hair as a kid.

Roque: Those trips to the barbershop with my brother, Junior, and my dad, it was the same vibe that I get when I walk into StylesVille. No appointments, you walked in and waited your turn, but it was never an inconvenience to wait, it was always full, and very lively. It was where I first enjoyed the experience of going to a barbershop.

De Leon: I still have the mirror, his mirror to this day. I have his barber chair to this day.

Roque: I am getting my haircut in the same exact chair that his dad used to cut my hair when I was a kid. When you ache for nostalgia or a connection to the past, experiences like this just blow you away and flood you with emotions.

De Leon: I never had a chance to take my dad’s barber chair to the shop, but now that I have been using it again, it just brings a sense of pride to me, not only because it’s a great chair, the energy I get when I use this chair, the energy that people, like, feel when I’m using this chair, it’s crazy, like, I know this sounds crazy, but I’ve had the best conversations in that chair, you know, especially because I work alone now, and people are just so, comfortable telling me, you know, what they’ve been going through, whether it’s good or bad. So I can only imagine the conversations that my dad had in that chair. So it’s nice to know that all that good energy that he left behind is still getting passed down. So the barbershop is the original social club. It’s where men can be men, have fellowship, ask other men what their take is on something, and even just a little getaway from everyday life.

Faucett: [on phone] StylesVille. Yeah, what’s going on, sir? How you doing? Uh, yeah, what time you talking about coming in? No problem, I’ll see you when you get here.

I’m like that old piece of shit that’s been sitting on the corner that you’ve been seeing for the last three weeks. I’m just like that. I’m not going nowhere, sir. And I mean that. For when people go out of town, move out of California and come back 15-20 years and I’m still here. And just to see how they get to reminiscing about what they didn’t do when they come here, their perm, the graduation, whatever that makes me feel good.

Roque: Back at the shop, Greg is busy cutting a customer’s hair.

How long have you been coming here?

Customer: Oh man, all my life on and off, but as consistent, the last two years.

Roque: Yeah.

Customer: I grew up right across the street in the project. Yeah, my mama walked me through the light and walked me across the light and I run down here.

Roque: Oh, from that age? Forever?

Customer: Yeah.

Faucett: Like he said, pretty much all his life.

Customer: I tried down the street, on Herrick and Van Nuys, but it, it, my crowd ain’t they crowd. It’s just, you’re not gonna find, you gotta get—like, barbershops ain’t barbershops no more. You know what I’m saying?

Faucett: Basically everybody that’s come in this shop is pretty much all they life. I think I’m not keeping this business here for me or my family. I think I’m more or less keeping it here for the community and their memories.

Roque: The generational ties and sense of community built around barbershops like StylesVille and Sammy’s shop are truly special. These spaces preserve legacies, transcending time and fostering deep connections. Two very different places, but similar stories. Two barbers who want to help their community and help preserve the legacies left to them by their forefathers. Preserving these types of cultural landmarks is important because they maintain our history and serve as gathering places where personal and community stories come together.

Faucett: I put three loops on this to where it cannot be sold. Simple as that.

Roque: StylesVille is in the process of becoming a designated landmark. That’s how StylesVille first came into my attention as an idea for a podcast episode. I thought how cool and unique it would be to talk about the importance of what goes on in barbershops and how unique it is to think of Getty and a barbershop in the same sentence—something you don’t see or hear every day.

Faucett: The main one I wanted was a historical landmark because if you was born and raised in Pacoima, there’s no way in hell your parents did not bring you in this barbershop to get a haircut. It’s one thing that I always wanted to outdo my grandfather, it’s one thing. My grandfather got us on the front cover of the Times magazine. I don’t think there’s never been a barbershop in the ghettos, has been on the front cover of Time magazine. So the only thing I can really top my grandfather would be doing is getting a historical landmark. That’s the only thing I could do. Because once I do that, these doors will always be here. It never can be knocked down for nothing, for nothing, for nothing or nothing. It’s gonna be what it is.

Roque: I thought back to the barbershop where Calixtro, Sammy’s dad, used to cut my hair. It was a yellow converted old craftsman home, super bright lights inside, music and a tv playing in the background, and yes, I would love to take a trip back and see it again, with the same look and feel, just as it happens at StylesVille for all the customers that leave and come back, and they find a bit of nostalgia in their day when they visit.

Who initially approached you to…?

Faucett: Who initially approached me on what?

Roque: On making it a landmark.

Faucett: See I got kinda smart, you know, conversation conversation is mother. So, you know, when you start getting political people in your chair, you get to start mentioning certain things. How can I make my shop a historical landmark and how long do I have to go to? How long do I have to go through to make it a historical landmark? Let me check on that for you, Greg, because it should be a historical landmark right now because your grandmother and grandfather been here for so long. So by me cutting hair, conversation, good hairpieces, good everything. It got to the right person. So when it got to Rita, Rita called me. Hey I’d like to talk to someone who is interested in getting your business into a historical landmark. Ohhh, wait a minute, that’d be me.

Roque: Hi Rita, how are you?

Rita Cofield: Right now there are about four percent of the 13… I think it’s 1,360 sites now that are identified as historic cultural monuments. Only four percent are associated with African Americans.

Roque: This is Rita Cofield, a Los Angeles native who works for Getty as an associate project specialist. I met up with her at Getty to talk more about StylesVille and her role.

Cofield: These sites are anchors. They’re anchors in the community, and they’re anchors in the community because they have history and it’s not because the history of the physical form of the building, although that is important, ’cause if you demolish it, it would be terrible. But the anchors are those folks that are still there serving in those buildings and the memories of those buildings, and their stories.

Roque: Her focus is solely on the African American HistoricPlacesLA project, a joint project with the Los Angeles City Planning’s Office of Historic Resources, and this builds on the previous work of survey LA, which was one of the first comprehensive surveys in any major American city, it surveyed over 880,000 parcels, to identify both historic, and potentially historic, sites, buildings, landscapes, districts, and objects. This project came about because of the racial reconciliation that was happening in 2020.

Cofield: This project wants to really sort of celebrate and highlight the contributions of African Americans in Los Angeles. Like I said It’s multi-layered, you know, we’re looking at designating sites, we’re looking at working with neighborhoods to apply what we’re calling preservation, cultural preservation strategies. Which go beyond designating sites. So the goal of the project is not only to increase the number of sites that are associated with African Americans, but to apply what we call anti-racist lens to the preservation practice and policies of the city and to uplift and make visible these under-recognized contributions of African Americans throughout the city of LA. And we’re…and with our project, we’re reaching out to community to make sure that we get community input, because we don’t want to keep doing the same thing in terms of who is designating, who is saying these places are important. So really going into the community and asking them for things that we can’t see. The social and the cultural significance that we can’t see.

Roque: So how did StylesVille come into play?

Cofield: Well, Pacoima has a champion in one we’re lucky to have as one of our advisory committee members, Crystal Jackson, who’s a local historian and just like wrote a 700 page book on Pacoima. We were lucky enough, our partner, Kim Bernstein, as we were trying to figure out what local African American experts we’d like to be a part of, to help guide the project Crystal Jackson’s name came up. So Crystal was a part of the Historic Cultural Monument Subcommittee. And we said, hey, look at this list. And then sort of shortlist some sites. And we got a shortlist of 15. And from that shortlist of 15, we got a shortlist of five. And so StylesVille, you know, that committee agreed, you know, that this is really important. And, and then we had Crystal and the community that was like, of course, you know, it’s the first Black barbershop in the San Fernando Valley.

Faucett: To me, I didn’t do my job if I didn’t make this spot a historical landmark before I pass, or pass it on to my kids. That’s my all time dream. I did that. I’m cool.

Roque: Yeah, yeah, it’s always gonna be here.

Faucett: It’s always gonna be here.

Roque: Always

Faucett: Exactly. I don’t care what I do, where I go, what my kids do, where they go. This building, your grandfather, your great grandfather, will be here.

Roque: Yeah!

Cofield: I also want to point out the places that we are designating, they’re still living. So that is also important, that designating spaces that are still active and that are active in the community, that are important to the community. So I think it’s sort of changing the narrative of who gets to say what’s important. So part of our project is, you know, creating an opportunity for community to learn the process. So that when this project is over, they will have the knowledge, the skills, or at least the awareness that this is what it takes, and this is what, this is who I can go to, this is how I can get it done. It’s about storytelling. Buildings are important but those buildings tell a story and those stories come from people. Communities that have this rich history like Pacoima—not many people know that, you know, Black people were pioneers in Pacoima and it was because of the racial covenants that prevented them from buying and renting and living in spaces outside of Pacoima. The San Fernando Valley was a segregated space and Pacoima was one of the only places that Black folks and folks who were not white could live and buy property.

Faucett: Van Nuys and GlenOaks, to Van Nuys and Laurel Canyon, both sides of the streets, was black owned. See what im sayin’? I’m the only person who still got his family business going on.

Roque: Out of everyone?

Faucett: Out of everyone.

Roque: Wow.

Faucett: I take that back. I think that community center and the church, still owned by Black people, still generations. Other than that, yeah, I’m the only one.

Roque: Wow, and you’re third generation.

Faucett: Yeah, I’m the third generation.

Roque: Third generation and you see that continuing?

Faucett: All day, every day.

Roque: Yeah?

Faucett: Me? I would never sell it, but like I say, you never say never. But then if somebody came to the office and say here’s my checkbook, I’m gonna start at $20 million. If you say write it in, I’m going to sell it, because I know my grandfather told me to sell it for $20 million. It’s worth $20 million.

Roque: Yeah.

Faucett: It’s worth a whole lot more to me, the memories, the people that came and met their girlfriends, their fiancés, families, that means a whole lot more to me than any amount of money in the world. I don’t care what it is, and that’s being truthful. But these memories, the people that’s been in here, I got generations, third generations.

Roque: Wow.

Faucett: My farthest customer right now comes from Orange County.

Roque: Ooh. It’s like an hour and a half.

Faucett: Once a month!

Roque: Wow.

Faucett: Him and his two boys.

Roque: Yeah and did he grow up around here?

Faucett: Pacoima!

Roque: So so..

Faucett: Pacoima!

Roque: So he was a customer from before and just like…

Faucett: Yes sir. That’s why I would never sell it. Because I got cats that do that. Just had a customer come in. Born and raised here, left here, went to, where did he say he went to, Georgia, Atlanta, Texas, Sacramento. Come back in town. Let me see if StylesVille still open? Where’d he come get a haircut? That makes me feel good when people can travel the world, see the world, do the world, and then come back and I’m still here. You just don’t know how good that makes me feel. That makes me feel good because that lets me know my grandmother and grandfather started a legacy that is unforgettable.

Roque: Yeah.

**Faucett: **Don’t care what you do.

Roque: Yeah.

Faucett: Don’t care where you go.

Roque: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Faucett: You gonna compare every barbershop and beauty salon to this barbershop that you was raised in. I’m here more or less for my community. You, people that’s been raised in this barbershop, that has kids, that moved out and come back, that’s what I’m here for.

Roque: Yeah.

Faucett: Oh, Greg, you still here? Man, I, oh, man, I, ooh, I, yeah, that right there? Yeah, you may give me…drop a tear or two.

Roque: Yea, yea.

Faucett: See what im sayin’.

Cofield: We still have the memories. But the physical place always ties back to those memories. There is a word called sankofa. It means to reach back and it literally means to reach back and get. But it’s talking about going back and getting the history and not forgetting the history so that you can move forward. So you can bring that history, you can feel comfortable in bringing that history forward. Um, so that you can um, teach it and learn from it.

De Leon: I believe that I’m preserving and continuing my dad’s legacy as a barber by doing what I believe he would want me to do, which is, have good community, you know, keep it going by not just doing a great haircut but by keeping his spirit alive with all the great conversations that I have with my clients and the great connections and friendships that can come out of this. And my mom…I think that she sees a part of him in me because I’m still doing this. It’s kind of like when they say a certain smell can take you back to a certain time and place. I know that if she smelled the pomade that my dad would use, which is Gable’s lemon pomade, it would take her back to like, oh dang. Like I remember him putting this on every morning and I feel that I do that for her whenever I dye her hair because she’ll just tell me like, if I close my eyes, I can feel like it’s your dad doing this because you do it exactly the way he does it, it's always just like a full circle moment.

Roque: StylesVille embodies that essence of keeping the past present, all while continuing to be a space in the community for future generations.

Cofield: The first time I came in and got my haircut, these kids came in and they just sat at the back. I was like, I was about to get irritated. I was like, what are they doing? Like, they’re just coming in and sitting. I was like, Rita that, this is their space and he has made it available for them. He has opened it up for them to be, to be a safe space, like you said. And it’s like, in my mind, oh my gosh, that’s, that is so needed. Cause they’re not going anywhere else, causing trouble.

Roque: Parents probably working at that time and that’s the safe space for them.

Cofield: It’s like, oh, I’m going over to the StylesVille. And it’s like, okay.

Roque: Parents probably like, okay, I know you’re good. Yeah.

Cofield: Don’t go anywhere else.

Roque: Uh huh, Stay there.

Cofield: I was like, are they here for a haircut? And he’s like, no, yeah, that’s a, that’s sort of a normal thing. And he has a barbecue pit. He’s going to get, I think he said he’s going to get back to barbecuing.

Faucett: Oh, yeah. You’ve been at the barbershop, buddy. So the next one, I would say barbecue ribs, chicken.

Roque: So yeah, you let me know what you want me to bring and I’ll bring it.

Faucett: I appreciate that, I appreciate y’all coming. That’s lovely. Boss man, it’s on you.

[music introduction]

Roque: Thank you for joining me on this episode of ReCurrent. Join me in two weeks as we continue to explore the cultural heritage stories around us. Let’s see what we can gain by keeping the past present.

ReCurrent was written and produced by Jaime Roque. Audio production by Jaime Roque. Our executive producer is Christopher Sprinkle.

For transcripts, images, and additional resources, visit getty dot edu slash podcasts slash recurrent.