In late 1970 we met some locals who wanted to start a sort of indoor flea market for hippie craftspeople. They ended up renting a former warehouse on Ventura Blvd. in Encino, and called it the Whole Earth Marketplace. We had our first exposure to the retail public there, and started what was supposedly the first public recycling center in Southern California.
In it’s heyday, it was a crazy place. It was cavernous, and full of different booths. leather workers, beads, bells, incense – I still catch a faint whiff of patchouli when I think of it. There was a restaurant, and at night they had live music. It was kind of like a non-stop party Nobody was really making any money, but we all stuck around for the laughs, i think.
We stayed with them until 1973, and worked 10-12 hour days keeping the store open and running our manufacturing. By this time we had broken into the wholesale trade as well. we had a salesman working the east Coast and a guy working L.A. We were getting to the point where we needed a real manufacturing jewelry shop. trying to do it between the few hours we could snatch at home and the twelve hours a day we worked the booth in Encino, it wasn’t cutting it and it was killing us.
Around the time we began to realize we couldn’t sustain our retail presence in Encino, we were able to rent a space in the Topanga Center, only a mile from home. By 1974 we had moved our retail operation there, as well as a complete factory. We were actually making money – and spending it too. I acquired some pretty expensive “hobbies” – there was a lot of that going around then.
And it started going to our heads, and we rashly decided that we should a stately showroom in Topanga Center decree – and it wasn’t a very sharp move.
