Throwback Thursday: Hollywood Fixer-Upper

The Aug. 13, 1984 issue of National Home Center News, the forerunner of HBSDealer, included a story: “Hollywood sign gets Lumber City touch-up for Olympics.”

The story looked at the efforts of Neiman-Reed's Lumber City home center to refurbish the iconic sign in the Hollywood hills. The 50-foot-tall sheet metal letters received a total of 150 gallons of white paint from Lumber City’s private-label Performance Plus II brand. The sign was a hit during the games (which included Mary Lou Retton tumbling to fame, and Michael Jordan winning basketball gold as an amateur.)

Neiman-Reed’s founder Bob Neiman was quoted: “People from other countries look at the Hollywood sign the way many Americans look at the Eiffel Tower.”

Neiman added: “There’s an old proverb that goes something like, “Bread cast upon the water comes back one-hundred-fold.”

Neiman Reid Lumber Company's Senior VP Ed Langley told HBSDealer he remembers those days when Lumber City touched up the Hollywood sign. Langley was hired by Neiman in 1975.

"They were pioneers in the home center concept when they opened their first home center, Neiman Reed's Lumber City store in Chatsworth in 1963," Langley wrote in an e-mail. "Neiman Reed's Lumber City became one of the prominent home center retailers in southern California along with the likes of Ole's, Builders Emporium, Angel's, Handy Andy, Builder's Square, Cooper's, et al. All of these have long gone out of buinsess -- except our chain."

Lumber City home centers changed its name a couple of times. Today it operates as the eight-store DIY Home Center chain (plus a stand-alone Virgil's Hardware), plus a 10-store Patioworld chain of outdoor furniture. The company also owns Neiman Reed Lumber Co., a wholesale distributor in Panorama City, California, and a business described as “America’s Largest Stocking Distributor of Pine Commons.”

Another word about Bob Neiman -- his obituary in the Los Angeles Daily News describes him as one of the few American officers to serve both in Iwo Jima and Okinawa during World War II. Neiman, writes Langley, was "perhaps the most experienced compbat commander of the U.S. Marine Corps' tank arm during WW II."

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