Susan Perlstein Tavares ‘mans’ the 107-year-old family plumbing business with the now ironic name,
Frank Perlstein and Son.
By Wendy Greenberg
It’s hard for third-generation plumbing supply owner Susan Perlstein Tavares to get away from business. Even at a local restaurant, invariably someone at a nearby table will exclaim, “You’re a great plumber! You always have what I need.” Sometimes they send over a bottle of wine.
Yet she is never far in spirit from the family who ran the business before her. Her father, especially, is always with her.
She tells this story: In the fall of 1986 she went to the last convention she ever attended with her dad, Lester, the second generation owner of Frank Perlstein Plumbing in Trenton. There in San Francisco she admired a charm — a gold faucet with a diamond drip. Unbeknownst to her, her father had bought it, but it was on back order. He died that December, but the charm arrived with no warning the following February. It is a constant physical connection to her father, Lester, and by extension to her grandfather Frank, who died before she was born.
Frank Perlstein Plumbing has been, well, a fixture in Trenton for 107 years, most of them at 815 South Broad Street in the Chambersburg section. Susan is proud of the neighborhood and her role as a member of that business community.
During a typical morning there is a buzz of activity inside the store: customers are coming in and out, and the phone is constantly ringing. The shelves behind the counter and the stock rooms stacked up behind them are brimming with standard and hard-to-find parts. To take a break and talk, Susan takes a chair by the window, and offers a visitor a small wooden-backed stool on which her grandmother used to sit and look out for Susan and other children coming to the upstairs apartment for dinners.
Back to work: Sometimes customers bring in a part, or show a part on their cell phone photos, and try to “stump the counter.” Susan and her crew are pretty much “un-stumpable.” After all, she has been at this since 1974. She knows, for example that American Standard parts are interchangeable with Symmons, and what can replace a discontinued J. L. Mott faucet, which dates back more than 100 years. Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine featured the abundance of inventory in “The Many Parts of Perlstein” about 25 years ago. Customers renovating Trenton’s older homes, some now divided into apartments, count on Perlstein’s inventory and knowledge.
“I know where to find parts,” Susan declares. “If you bring in a part for a faucet and it is 100 years old, I know where to find a machine shop and get it made.”
In a written history on the occasion of the company’s 100th anniversary in 2008, Susan says that operating a successful family business “takes talent, determination, and a lot of hard work. It also takes good fortune.”
But give her credit — determination and hard work, not luck, seem to be what brought Susan to this day.
One of three daughters of founder Frank’s second son Lester, she was the one who went with her dad to the store. “I was the son he never had,” she says. She dusted displays in the store. She didn’t mind getting her hands dirty. They also enjoyed fishing trips together.
Her grandfather Frank Perlstein started the business in 1908. The family of immigrants from Russia came from New York to Trenton, seeking “the country.”
By the early 1900s Trenton was a city with steel, tile, and ceramics factories. Frank learned the business working for J.L. Mott fitting gas lamps. He started his own business as a gas fixture supplier.
The iconic horse drawn cart seen on the Perlstein website got them around the city, and then they took the trolley. Taking the trolley meant two employees would hold a section of pipe out the window that others had lifted up to them.
Of Frank’s two sons, younger son Lester was more suited to taking over. An Army supply sergeant who pursued an engineering degree at Rutgers, he succeeded his father upon Frank’s death in 1950.
As Trenton grew, so did Perlstein Plumbing, moving initially among several South Broad Street locations. The retail store carried the parts that would keep plumbing fixtures working in the factories and homes. Lester advocated training and education, and served on the Plumbing-Heating Cooling Contractors (PHCC) association’s national board of directors. His wife Jean, an industrial nurse, became active in the Women’s Auxiliary of the PHCC, and Susan has served as the New Jersey PHCC’s first female president.
In the early 1970s, Susan was in college with no clear direction as to a future career. When her dad had a mild heart attack, she spent her winter break in the store. Suddenly she had a clear direction. “I knew what I needed to do,” she said. She got her belongings from college and never looked back. She learned the inventory in the rooms of 815 South Broad Street. Union apprentice plumber Carl Mathews came on board to help. Her older sisters, who chose careers in otorhinolaryngology and occupational therapy, were not interested, she said.
Lester died suddenly in 1986. “He was a wonderful man. A big guy, 6-foot-2, but a sweetheart,” says Susan. Creditors, however, lacked confidence that a woman could run the business. Susan made a second commitment. Since state law requires that owners of plumbing contracting firms hold master plumber licenses, Susan got a six-month extension (because of the sudden change in ownership) and went to work studying for the difficult written exam. PHCC friends were coaches, and Carl Mathews was to take the test as well as a backup.
Both failed on their first tries. The legal grace period was tightening. They studied more and both scored a passing grade the second time. Susan became the second female master plumber in the history of the state. Her license states that the licensee has “fulfilled his requirement.” Today customers no longer make a beeline for the males at the counter, as they did in earlier years.
Susan unearthed a lot of the history on her own by spending time in the city libraries. She documented the Perlstein locations — the first at 161 South Broad in 1914, and has amassed a stack of relics. Perlstein’s first advertisement, for example, featured the Pawnee Pipeless Heater, and the line, “Cut your Coal Bill in Half.” The packet contains photos, copies of articles, and even a circular metal piece that went on the floor where the radiator pipe protrudes.
The city has changed, she concedes, but Chambersburg is a place where neighbors watch out for one another. Susan sweeps the sidewalk and others follow suit. A 50-year-old poster over the counter says, “The Plumber Protects the Health of the Nation.” The employees take that seriously.
The service end accounts for 70 percent of the revenue. Perlstein also works on large jobs, including sewer and water treatment, and, Susan says, installing a sprinkler system at the state house when the gold dome was restored. Annual sales range from $500,000 to $1 million.
The advent of big box stores has cut into business to some extent, she says. But her customers, many of whom are grandchildren of Frank’s customers, say that the atmosphere at Perlstein’s is different. Even the parts can be different. Some show the same outer materials but the inner material on older parts is of higher quality.
At the big box store, there is no expertise before or after the sale, she says. “That’s all part of it. I have my vice to try to help. Sometimes you need to take something apart.” Sometimes the staff at Perlstein’s draws pictures to help explain a repair. And a big box store doesn’t have nearly the space for stock. “If you can’t find it at Perlstein’s you can’t find it at all,” she says.
Having just passed her 60th birthday, and with no family members who want to take over the business, she considers the future. She recently got certified in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning to stay on top of possible changing regulations.
On the other hand, if the right buyer came along, she just might be able to get away more. She enjoys traveling with her retired husband, bike riding, and especially scuba diving.
When she is under water, she explains, she can’t hear the phone. But at least for the near future, she will be behind the counter trying to find just the right part.
Frank Perlstein & Son Inc, 815 South Broad Street, Trenton. Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m to 4:30 p.m., Saturdays, 8 a.m. to noon. (609) 393-4877.
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