The legendary LaTourrette celebrates Cd'A milestone

COEUR d’ALENE — If the remark is made that LaTourrette's Styling Salon is a community institution, owner Steve LaTourrette is quick with a quip in response.

"It is, yeah,” he'll say, smiling his infectious smile. "That’s where I belong, an institution."

For 50 years, LaTourrette has shared his talent, charm and appetite for life with the people of Coeur d'Alene. He'll celebrate that milestone on July 1, the anniversary of opening his first shop in the basement of an old house at Eighth Street and Mullan Avenue.

His introduction to the area was happenstance, involving a random conversation with a server and an encounter with Robert Kennedy days before his assassination.

LaTourrette lived in San Francisco at the time and stopped for the night in Coeur d'Alene on his way to see his parents in Butte. The next morning, he got breakfast at the old North Shore.

"As I sit down at the counter, the waitress says, 'Boy that’s something about Kennedy getting killed.’ And I said, 'Yeah, a terrible thing,’ but I’m wondering why she’s telling me this 5-year-old news," he said. "I says, ‘Yeah, I guess Oswald got it right afterwards and I hear the other day that Custer died over in Montana.’ I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, and she says, ‘No, Bobby Kennedy.’ And I said, ‘That’s crazy. I shook his hand two days ago.'"

He told the server about how he had just met Kennedy when he announced his candidacy for president. LaTourrette saw him outside the San Francisco Press Club and the two exchanged a handshake when LaTourrette encouraged a young lady, "a great-looking hippie gal with flowers in her hair,” to accept Kennedy's offer to join the party bus to L.A.

"He said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and he shook my hand," LaTourrette recalled. "I went to Idaho and he went to L.A. and got killed. I guess Bobby Kennedy is the reason I’m here."

The server he spoke with just happened to have a beauty parlor in her basement and suggested LaTourrette open shop in a then-small Coeur d'Alene.

"It had two dryers, two mirrors and a sink," he said. "For some reason, I said, ‘Hell, I think I’ll rent it.'"

Thus began the establishment of LaTourrette's, a name long associated with beauty and quality in the local hairstyling industry.

"I made a living," LaTourrette said, eyes twinkling.

Now 79, LaTourrette has worked on countless clients through the years, spanning several styles, eras and generations. He continues to work at least six days a week, and doesn't plan to quit.

"The whole thing is thank Coeur d’Alene, because they did it for me,” he said. “Every little town has beauty shops, and so you just kind of fit in where you fit in … I was in Butte, in Provo (Utah), in Orem, Utah, in Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas, San Jose, San Francisco. But when I was here, it just happened. Like everything, it takes a while to make it happen, but at least you have a chance."

Sarah Robinson of Coeur d'Alene is the third generation of her family to entrust their tresses to LaTourrette, and her daughters represent the fourth. Her grandmother, Edith Holecek, went to him beginning in 1968 until her death in January of this year.

"He was the first one to cut my hair," Robinson said. "I can remember being a kid and being there when my mom would have her hair cut and we had to wait. I can't imagine what I'm going to do when he finally decides to retire."

LaTourrette moved to the present location of LaTourrette's at 1412 N. Fourth St. in 1970. The shop was a doctor's office that had been combined with an old Farragut building, but it has since become a second home to LaTourrette, his employees and his many loyal clients.

"Coeur d'Alene has been so fortunate to have him, and his passion is to be in that salon on Fourth Street behind his chair, making people feel good," said former employee and friend Mandy McCullough. "That is the best part about him."

McCullough met LaTourrette in the 1990s when she was a receptionist in the spa at The Coeur d'Alene Resort, which LaTourrette helped open. He encouraged her to enroll in cosmetology school, a decision that led her to a bright career as a national educator for Redken and a stylist with her own salon in Seattle.

She describes LaTourrette as her "second dad." He was a motivating force for her as she went through school, even signing her up for advanced classes outside her training to expand her knowledge and enhance her skills.

"I'm a huge believer in continuing education, but that is a value Steve instilled in me. It's a huge platform I believe in that I now pass on to other hair stylists who are early into their careers," McCullough said. "The support he gave me in that part of my career was monumental to how my career was directed. To this day, I would drop everything if he needed anything.

"If I have any success, he's the first person I share it with," she said. "I think it's an example of how somebody makes one drop in a bucket and the power of the ripples that come after it. The drop Steve has made has touched so many people."

From sharing a cab with the late-great hair icon Paul Mitchell to fun exchanges with legendary Vidal Sassoon, LaTourrette's stories of the industry are as numerous as the friends he's made by simply telling jokes and making them feel gorgeous. Many of his employees have worked for him for as long as 30 years, and he considers his staff to be a part of his family.

LaTourrette and his wife, Kathy, are inviting past employees, friends and loved ones to gather in the salon from 5-8 p.m. July 2 to celebrate LaTourrette and the anniversary of the day he took a chance and opened shop in a tiny town in North Idaho.

"It's my world," he said. "It just is."