WORCESTER—When Robert Lapierre and Roy Samra decided to open a hair salon on Pearl Street, the architect wrote “Rob, Roy’s plans” on the design plans for the building.
Lapierre and Samra liked the sound of “Rob Roy” so that’s what they decided to call their salon. The name stuck and on May 16, Rob Roy Hair Salons will celebrate their 65th anniversary.
The business had as many as 21 salons in the 1980s and still has nine. There’s one at 120 Stafford St. in Worcester and the others are in Athol, Auburn, Gardner, Holden, Shrewsbury, Spencer, Uxbridge and Webster.
Rob Roy also has five cosmetology academies.
“We did all the training of our people,” Lapierre said. “So why not get paid for it?”
Close to 100 students attend the school located inside the corporate headquarters at 150 Pleasant St. That building opened in 1847 as the Oxford Street School and was by far the oldest grammar school in the city when it closed in 1977. Roy Rob moved into the building two years later. Barbering is also taught there.
About 200 students attend Rob Roy’s other schools in Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton and Woonsocket, R.I.
Of Rob Roy’s more than 80 stylists, two have worked from behind the chair for 52 years each, Julie Gay and Janet Moore, and more than 10 others have been with the company for 25-43 years.
So opening a hair salon 65 years ago certainly was no hairbrained scheme.
Samra passed away at age 86 in 2023, but Lapierre, 86, still reports to work each day at the corporate headquarters.
Samra’s daughter, Tracy Casey, and Lapierre’s daughter, Debra Cooke, have run the business for more than a decade.
The business has come a long way from the original salon on Pearl Street that could fit only six chairs. Back then, in addition to cutting and styling hair, Rob Roy sold clothing and makeup.
During an interview at the corporate headquarters on Monday, Lapierre said he couldn’t remember what kind of clothing or how much of it was sold.
“We’re not in the clothing business now,” he said. “So we couldn’t have sold that much.”
Lapierre owns the buildings for the five schools and one of the salons and he helps manage their expenses.
“Every day there’s less and less that I can do because she won’t let me do anything,” Lapierre said with a smile while pointing to his daughter.
Cooke and Casey laughed in response. They knew he was joking. The truth is he’s proud of what they have accomplished.
“Unbelievable improvement,” he said. “They’re improved everything.”
Many former students have opened their own barbershops or hair salons. About five years ago, Samra began to compile a list of barbershops run by former Rob Roy students. The number was well into the hundreds and if you included hair salons, Casey believes that the number would be much higher.
“There are just so many people,” Casey said, “that have been able to have a beautiful life because two men decided to do something a little bit different than what someone else did. They didn’t just work behind the chair and cut their own customers’ hair. They set up schools so other people could have that same life and that same lifestyle, to be entrepreneurs. It’s kind of exciting when you think about it.”
Lapierre and Samra met while attending the Ollis Beauty Academy. Lapierre’s mother, Exilia, was a hairdresser and Samra’s older brother, George, was a barber so they were familiar with the hair business.
Lapierre won hairstyling competitions in places as far away as Paris so he handled most of the training of Rob Roy’s hairstylists and barbers and Samra oversaw the business end of the company.
“The best partnership is when your strengths are someone else’s weaknesses,” Casey said, “because then you’re not stepping on each other’s toes.”
Casey, 58, works in sales and Cooke, 54, has licenses in cosmetology, barbering and esthetics and she works in financial aid and accounting.
Cooke usually limits her hair cutting to what she calls “kitchen hair cuts” for family members, but she does cut her father’s hair in the barber school at 150 Pleasant St.
Rob Roy is offering monthly specials to celebrate the 65th anniversary. During the month of April, scalp treatments will cost only $6.50 instead of $25.
Cooke studied business at Assumption College and after graduating she earned her hairstyle licenses and worked at Rob Roy for a few years. Then she styled hair in Texas, Florida and Maryland for 13 or 14 years.
Casey has never cut hair. She studied criminal justice at Syracuse University and then worked in admissions for Rob Roy for a couple of years. Then she worked in advertising and marketing for Worcester Business Journal for awhile.
Cooke and Casey returned to Rob Roy in 2013 at the request of their fathers and over the next few years they gradually assumed management of the business.
“My dad and Robert really fostered a culture where people felt like family,” Casey said. They didn’t feel like a number. They didn’t feel like they couldn’t say, ‘Robert, I’m having an issue with this, that or the other thing.’ And that has helped us be able to follow very well in their footsteps because although we may be different in the way we manage certain things, we both are family oriented and we both watched the two of them build something that is basically unheard of where people can be seen and heard and feel like family at a job.”
Casey said the daughters felt “more than a little” pressure to follow in the footsteps of their fathers and Cooke said they also feel responsible for their employees.
“We don’t want to mess with their livelihood,” Cooke said. “We appreciate them and we do think of ourselves as a team as we’re in it together.”
So what’s the most frequent request hairstylists receive from their customers?
“Make me look beautiful,” Casey said.
Cooke said some customers bring in a photo of someone else and ask for the same hairstyle.
Cooke said trends in hairstyles can be like trends in clothes. What was popular many years ago, such as a mullet, can become popular again today.
Cooke has also seen a hike in young boys having their hair permed.
Rob Roy cuts and styles hair of people of all ages.
Cooke said customers don’t book appointments as often as when she styled hair 30 years ago. Back then many customers had their hair washed and styled each week and some had their hair colored every five or six weeks. Now they might have it colored every three or four months. In addition to saving money by having hair cut less often, longer styles are easier to maintain, Cooke said.
Cooke said over the last five years or so, more older customers are highlighting their silver and gray.
“People are embracing natural textures, natural colors,” Casey said. “No longer is it one size fits all for people.”
Unkempt hair has become more popular among younger people and Rob Roy works with them to help manage that look. The schools even shave heads.
Lapierre, Samra’s widow Maureen, and Kevin Bonaventura also own Culpepper’s Bakery & Cafe, which will celebrate 30 years in business in December.
Casey said some people believe Rob Roy is the full name of the sole owner.
“They called my mother ‘Mrs. Rob Roy,’” Casey said. “They get very confused that there were two actual individuals.”
“People don’t understand, but they know the name,” Cooke said.
And the name has been around for 65 years. As far as Lapierre, Cooke and Casey know, Rob Roy has been around longer than any other hair salon in the Worcester area.
Bill Doyle can be reached at billdoyle1515@gmail.com
