After 110 Years, Silver of Westport is Closing

By James Lomuscio

On this Black Friday, Stephen Silver quipped “this is the blackest Friday of all of them. ” The 110-year-old, family business, Silver of Westport at 390 Post Road East, will close once the holiday shopping season ends, he said.

Stephen Silver was upbeat after announcing the store’s closing. “I want to go out like a New Orleans funeral—all the bells and whistles,” he said. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

Silver said the decision to shut the specialty gift and luggage shop was made with his two sons and daughters-in-law at 5 p.m. Thursday following Thanksgiving dinner.

He noted his grandfather, Samuel Silver, started the family business in Bridgeport in 1904, selling canes and umbrellas. In 1951, his father, Philip Silver, opened the Westport shop, growing the business with specialty gifts and luggage in Westport’s Compo Acres Shopping Center.

“We’ve been teetering, talking about closing it for a long time,” he said, adding, “I want to go out like a New Orleans funeral—all the bells and whistles.”

Susan Silver, his sister, said the planned closing has “been a long time coming,” citing competition from Internet shopping and not fully recovering from the recession. She and her brother also said they were influenced by difficulties caused by on again, off again construction at the shopping center.

“And we’re getting on in age,” she said. “We’ve had a good run, and we wanted to go out on a high note. …We always knew this day would come, but it’s sad no matter what.”

Personal sentiment runs deep, Stephen Silver pointed out, noting, “I was 11 when I started working here, and my sister, she was 10.”

He waxed nostalgic today, about “the many generations who have worked here.” He even recalled what it was like as a young man, making a delivery to legendary actress Bette Davis’ house.

“I must have brought her five or six garment bags, and she picked one, and I went back to the store,” he recalled.

The shop was also a popular haunt of the late actor Paul Newman and late author Robert Ludlum. Over the years, Ludlum had become such a good friend of Philip Silver that the author wrote him a novella titled “The Silver Addendum,” the son noted.

Stephen Silver said his father had three brothers, “and they came out to Westport as a pilot project” in 1951.

“In 1959, they thought it would be better to separate,” Stephen Silver recalled, a good move as the store thrived selling specialty items and high-end curiosities long before chains such as the Sharper Image came along.

Meanwhile the Bridgeport store closed in 1953 and another store in Milford was shuttered in 1984.

Stephen Silver said his shop still has 16 years left on its lease with Equity One, Inc., a real estate investment trust, “and we’re looking for someone to take it.”

Silver said the exact closing date was not known and would be dependent on how long the merchandise lasts.

“I can’t imagine it being more than 60 days; it will probably be 30 days,” he said.

Longtime Westporter Sybil Steinberg, mother of state Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, said she raced to the store today as soon as she had heard the news.

“I don’t need anything,” Steinberg said. “I just came here to say goodbye. I remember all the way back to their grandmother in Bridgeport. My grandmother and their grandmother were friends.

“It’s a nostalgia trip for me,” she added.

Today the store opened with 20 percent discounts on most items, 50 percent on select ones.

“It (the discounts) could go higher as we have less and less inventory,” Susan said.

By 4 p.m., as word spread, shoppers, longtime and newcomers, arrived looking for bargains.

Stephen Silver acknowledged the irony of it being Black Friday.

“It’s the blackest Friday of all of them,” he said.

While the Internet has been a contributor to the store’s decline, Stephen Silver was quick to post a YouTube video announcing the store’s closing. View it here.

—Dave Matlow contributed reporting.