Charles Himelhoch - 3rd Generation President of Himelhoch’s®
Charles
(Chuck) Himelhoch - From the Birmingham Community House
Charles Himelhoch (Chuck), called
“Mr. Charles” by his team (Aug. 19, 1919-Dec. 7, 2020), graduated from Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield
Hills, Michigan, and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He began
working at Himelhoch’s as a stock boy after four years of service
in the United States Army. Chuck advanced into leadership after serving virtually
in every capacity, albeit salesperson, coat buyer, merchandise manager, and
other positions vital to a deep understanding the business. Reflecting back to
his experience as coat buyer, he said “We used to know a lot more than they do
today about the merchandise. A heck of a lot more pure
wools, cottons, and silks were used. There weren’t so many variations of
manmade fabrics. We even knew the labor setup for each garment” (White, Sandra, January 30, 1977, The Detroit Free Press, p. 1D).
Chuck was known as “a man of ideas” (Detroit Free
Press, January 2, 1967, p. 14). For example, when the Northland store branch
added its second level, Chuck implemented the “Taste Level” strategy that
eventually was executed throughout the chain. Merchandise purchased by buyers
from numerous departments was placed in one area of the store and sold by a
shared salesforce. A divergence from the practices of other department stores
and women’s specialty stores, “Taste Level” provided agility that was comparable
to the advantage enjoyed by smaller specialty boutiques.
No matter how much fashions evolved over the
years, Chuck told reporter Frank Angelo of the Detroit Free Press in 1975 that
“We’re still operating pretty much as we’ve always operated the family
business” (Angelo, Frank, September 10, 1975, Detroit Free Press, p. 9). Although
Wolf Himelhoch would have found layering, tonality, and denim jumpsuits
startling, the family culture and its core operational procedures never
changed. Chuck continues as CEO Emeritus of Himelhoch’s LLC, in which he and his wife Isabel's son and daughter, Chip and Carol, continue family traditions.
Chuck was a leader in retail trade organizations,
and was director of the Better Business Bureau, Detroit Community Trust, the
Central Business District of Detroit, and the Retail Merchants Association of
Detroit. He was active at Meadowbrook Theater, The Anthony Wayne Society of
Wayne State University, Rotary International, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit Area
Council of Boy Scouts of America, and belonged to Franklin Hills Country Club,
the Standard Club, and the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club, where he became a “life
member.” Nationally, he was Chairman of the Ready-To-Wear Committee, and a
member of Vendor Relations Committee of the National Retail Merchants
Association, and treasurer of the SSA - Specialty Stores of America.
After 1979, he served as Adjunct Professor of Retail Management within the
marketing departments of Wayne State University, Oakland University, Central Michigan University, and Eastern
Michigan University. He also formed his own consulting and research firm,
Himelhoch Retail Research Specialists, and became Assistant to the President of
Schnieder’s Sporting Goods Stores.
He was active in St. Dunstan’s Guild of Cranbrook
and the Birmingham Village Players and was president of the Birmingham Tennis
Club. He belonged to Temple Beth El, and later the Birmingham Temple.
Presently, at age 99, he and his son, Chip, belong to Shema Israel, a
Messianic-Jewish synagogue in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His wife, Isabel Levy
Himelhoch (see below) not only joined the family when they married in 1955, she
also became an integral part of the business.
Photo of
Charles and Isabel Himelhoch from The Detroit Free Press, 05, February 2018
Isabel, known to employees as “Mrs. Charles,”
passed away at age 85 in February 2018. She served as better dress buyer and
fashion coordinator and drew upon her retail management experience at
Bergdorf Goodman in New York. She had a keen ability to forecast fashion
trends. She said she always watched the children’s fashion market to forecast
what women’s wear would adopt in the upcoming seasons. And she was always right!
Frank Angelo, former reporter for the Detroit Free Press, covered a two-day
meeting at the Holiday Inn, at which she educated 300 employees on up-coming
fashion trends. At a breakfast meeting, she was “the commentator, and an
enthusiastic and knowledgeable one at that, while Chuck hovered in the
sidelines, ready to jump in to give a hand to push around racks of clothes or
make sure a model appeared on time” (Angelo, Frank, September 10, 1975, Detroit
Free Press, p. 9). In that meeting, Isabel explained to employees, in language
that encapsulated fashion of the time, “ We’re in a fashion cycle that makes
sense -The keywords are classic, practical, quality, and comfortable.”
Isabel was also a patron of the arts. She used to
write music for Mitch Miller at Columbia Records, New York, for the show, “Sing
Along with Mitch.” She studied music composition with Leonard Bernstein as a
teenager, earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music composition at
Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, and Harvard University in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, respectively. She performed in many Gilbert and Sullivan
operettas, and studied voice for nine years, including four years at the New
England Conservatory of Music and with Frederick Jegel of
the Metropolitan Opera. In Michigan, she acted, directed, and directed music
for countless productions at St. Dunston’s, Cranbrook, the Birmingham Theater,
and the Pinkney Players. She conceptualized and founded “Himelhoch’s™
Needle Arts Gallery,”a department at the Northland and Birmingham, Michigan,
branch stores. Her talent at needlework was of art exhibition quality. Her prolific
production of needle arts could fill a museum, and included a family portrait,
three-dimensional wall hangings, geometric designs, and vivid images of jungle
animals.
Isabel is perhaps best remembered playing the
piano, surrounded by friends and family, singing popular songs from musicals.
Carol, her daughter, says her favorite photo, shared below, captures Isabel’s
joy in sharing her enormous musical talent with others.
Photo of
Isabel Himelhoch in her College Years, Seated Center at the Piano -
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