Tucked away in the basement of the West Union Building, the Duke Barber Shop has held fast for more than 90 years.
The Duke Barber Shop is buried deep in an unusual location. If it weren’t for the swirling red, white and blue pole just inside the window, it would be easy to miss, and many people new to Duke don’t even know the place exists in the basement of the West Union Building.
“It didn’t used to be a secret until the Bryan Center was built,” David Fowler says without looking up from the back of the neck he’s shaving. “Back then everything was down here. It was like a shopping mall.”
As the bank and stores moved away, the barber shop stayed put. The institution will turn 91 next week and even though it started as a little stand on East Campus, it’s been in the West Union Building for as long as Fowler can remember.
The Duke Barber Shop is hoping for a new home, though—one with a little more foot traffic. Recently administrators have talked about moving the shop when the West Union Building is renovated in the future. Fowler says he expected to move to space near Duke University Hospital, next to the Medical Center Bookstore, but plans have been delayed.
“Depending on who you talk to it might be about money,” he says. “It might even be about some politics.”
The budgets for the renovations of both the new location and the West Union Building are not yet finalized, said Executive Vice President Tallman Trask, but the University is developing plans for the two spaces.
“We have a commitment to making things work for Dave and the rest of them,” said Jim Wilkerson, director of Duke Stores.
With the easygoing ways of its proprietors and its traditional services—such a straight razor shave—the barber shop continues to draw about 100 Duke affiliates to the shop a day, keeping the one part-time and five full-time barbers busy. The store has kept up with the times and now two of the staff primp and dress women’s hair with everything from color to perms. Its bread and butter, though, are still simple men’s cuts with clippers and razors.
Many customers of the shop compete to be considered the most loyal. But even though some patrons have been stopping by for trims for more than 30 years, it’s tough to beat Fowler’s longevity. He came to the little barber shop in 1959.
The store is Fowler’s now, and he leases the room from the University. But he refuses to let anyone call him the boss. “I wouldn’t say that,” he says over the whir of the clipper. “I’m responsible to pay the rent.”
Just to listening to the conversation, you’d think Fowler and fellow barber Bud Midgett were standing on a street corner, swapping stories and greeting passers-by. They wave to West Union Building residents who stroll past the two picture windows that face the basement hallways and they talk about their customers.
“I had one guy who came in who cut his own self’s hair,” Midgett says in his slow drawl that hails from provincial counties of North Carolina. “He tried to cut a mohawk, and he got to the top and didn’t know what to do with it.
“It was like a cotton top there—just there on top.”
Midgett just snipped the little spigot of hair and sent the guy on his way. Only days later does he laugh about it as his big eyes peer through his even bigger glasses at the floor.
On that floor, tufts of discarded hair clump into giant dust bunnies around the swivel chairs. A mat of hair covers the fading linoleum and still more wisps lightly fall from the clasp of the clippers in Fowler’s hand.
He leans in to examine the buzz cut he’s creating but doesn’t miss a snip as he and Midgett trade stories about customers who have become fixtures at the little shop. Former President Terry Sanford used to get his hair cut there, and President Richard Brodhead has already stopped by for a trim. The regulars, though, are considered family.
Amid the loyal customers are new ones, too. And young or old, when a first-time customer leaves, Fowler opens up a little cabinet and pulls out a piece of bubble gum that is pink and chewy and as classic as the shop itself.
“New people,” he says, “we always show ‘em bubble gum.”
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