villagenews
Richard still shaking hands as the face behind the name
WHEN Richard Malouf told me he had recently opened a new Malouf pharmacy in south Gympie, my hometown, he related how friendly the townsfolk were: “I walked around the shopping centre and met many locals and they kept saying: ‘It’s great to meet the face behind the name’.” www.caterinalay.com
got pumping there. Richard said: “He imported European cars like the unique aluminium Alpha Romeo for clients, filled a need for bicycles for shearers seasonally on their way to the sheds, became the funeral director when the local director died but, most of all, he established his first little fashion house there.” Soon he was opening fashion stores in other towns and cities. In Brisbane, he based his growing empire in The Strand building that he bought on Queen and Albert streets in 1920, calling the business Marcia Gowns, employing 100 saleswomen and 25 alteration staff on five levels. When Richard had matriculated in Grade 12 at St Laurences College, he seemed always destined to follow his father Nick (Calile’s son) into the fashion world, saying: “There were
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villagepeople by Gary Balkin
How right he was. Shoppers like to know traders and their pharmacy is an important one to deal with. There are now 19 Malouf pharmacies and 15 Cosmetic Fragrance Direct stores in Queensland so Richard has a lot of hands to shake and smiles to give – which suits his amiable style perfectly. His business acumen and congenial attitude gives his operations an edge in this sometimes brutal environment. It explains his sustainability. Malouf Pharmacies has its head office at Teneriffe, on Commercial Road, and his two New Farm pharmacies take pride of place – one in Merthyr Village and the other on the corner of Merthyr Road and Brunswick Street. Malouf’s have been there for the past 15 years of Richard’s recently celebrated 50 years of pharmacies. The very first Malouf pharmacy was in Albert Street in the city; a story which has real significance in Richard’s life, not just because it was the first but because of the locality and the history of the site. Grandfather Calile Malouf left Lebanon following a big shake-up there from the neighbouring Turks of the Ottoman Empire. While most fled to America, Calile Malouf headed for Australia; first to Brisbane where he “never did really well”, then to Charleville where he opened a drapery shop. Calile and family really 18
villagenews June 2012
all these beautiful models walking around this five-level fashion house but, not long after I’d settled in, the family sold the unique building so I went to QUT, opened a pharmacy in the new building and the dream of working in the fashion world subsided. “My biggest fortune came when I met a lovely girl, Anne Marie Josephson, a Mater Hospital nurse who had gone to London to study dialysis and intensive care, returned with new degrees – and suddenly here we were getting married. “We had dated several times and then married at the Rainbow Room at the old Lennons in George Street. Pat Josephson, father of Anne Marie and her six sisters, booked the room for the 250-guest wedding. It was a delightful, grand affair and, sadly, the very last function ever held there. That building went too.” The Rainbow Room: wall-to-wall mirrors, silver service, starched linen, great waiters, a cocktail bar featuring the renowned Warren who later went to the National Hotel, good retro food such as beef wellington, lobster thermidor, salty fresh prawn cocktail, star-quality musical entertainment featuring nightly on a grand stage. Brisbane hasn’t seen the like since. The happy couple went on to be parents of two, Richard jnr who has chosen an hotelier’s life by buying into the Boardwalk Hotel at Hope Island, and Louise, who has joined her father at the helm after having studied and working as a nurse. Richard had seen two fine historic buildings, the George Street Lennons and The Strand, bite the dust but, as progress happens, sad as it is, new icons can light up. There are
Above Left, Richard Malouf on his wedding day. Above, Richard Malouf today. Left,The very first Malouf pharmacy was in Albert Street in the city; a story which has real significance in Richard’s life, not just because it was the first but because of the locality and the history of the site now many, many five-star hotels in the CBD and beyond and on the first floor of the building that took the place of The Strand is the popular Jo Jos restaurant; there’s a huge successful mall in Queen Street below, the thoroughfare once celebrated nightly by Rock and Roll George parading in his yellow Holden car – Richard Malouf lived through it all and he himself has enthusiastically embraced the new Brisbane, the unique quality of nearby suburbs re-invigorated, such as New Farm, Teneriffe and Kangaroo Point, and, of course, the ever-emerging Fortitude Valley. It’s not just the CBD and New Farm that has changed so dramatically during the Malouf family years. Richard’s close family friend – the celebrated author David Malouf – wrote his book 12 Edmondstone Street about life growing up in South Brisbane. Across the road was No. 9, the luxury mansion where Calile had settled on his victorious return to Brisbane from Charleville. Calile bought it from the Pike family (of the then Pikes Menswear building in Queen Street) and the mansion represented all that had been good about turn-of-the-previous-Century Brisbane, when South Brisbane was an elite suburb of residence, where hundreds of West End and
inner-southside kids congregated at weekends to play pick-up rounders in the local Musgrave Park. No. 9 and nine other houses were to make way in the 1970s for the then new Melbourne Hotel (which in this Century was again demolished for a new development). I was the then hotelier. The size of the No. 9 house keys were 20cm titans, befitting the grandeur of the aged mansion. I mention all this not just to recall the grandeur of the times of Marcia Gowns and other icons but to remark on how I have seen Richard Malouf’s growth along with our city. I had a year at St Laurences in my schooling and watched him as a leading scholar, a pilot officer of the school Air Training Corps (from my status as a humble air cadet), met him and his charming wife years later when they were presidents of the legendary annual Show Week Embers Ball at The Melbourne, witnessed his steady yet definite rise to the top as boss of Queensland’s leading privately owned pharmacy chain and note that he still has the common touch, where he can enjoy walking around his shops and environs and shaking peoples’ hands, just as occurred at Gympie recently – their meeting of the genuine, amiable “face behind the name”.