For Sale Sign Up On Ron's Hair Designers

Ron Mello, the owner of Ron's Hair Designers, is getting serious about selling his building at 285 Main St., which houses his barber shop on the main level and a rooming house on the upper floors.

Several years ago Mello cut back his hours and started talking about selling the shop. Now he has officially listed with Butler Realty and there is a for sale sign in the window.

Currently he is open by appointment on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.  When the building sells he plans to keep busy by renting a chair in another barber shop.

A lot of hair has hit the shop floor over the years.  It was known as Leo’s Barber shop before Ron took over in 1968.

Mello went retro in 1974, putting in a pot-bellied stove and re-designing the shop to accurately reflect the good old days when the barber shop was where men gathered for conversation.   Over the years he maintained a lot of the look and feel of the past.

However, in 1971, he took a quantum leap into the future when he hired the town’s first “lady barber." Miss Bobbie, as she called herself, startled a number of the male customers when she first started work.  She told a reporter that one advantage she had was that children and their mothers were more comfortable with a female barber.  

Mello kept up with styles and trends by traveling to London a number of times to attend the Vidal Sassoon School of Hairdressing.  He featured a technique called the Roffer Sculpture Kut, which was registered with the U.S. Patent office. 

At one point he added hair care for women in a brand new concept of the time called unisex and had up to five employees. 

Men were confined to the main floor while the women went to the second story for nail care, facials, a skin care specialist and several stylists.  At one time there was even a tanning bed.

However, the upper levels eventually evolved into rooms, which are rented out on a long or short term basis.  At least one tenant has been there for 10 years. 

Know as the Normandie Rooms, there are 13 rooms whose occupants share a community kitchen and three bathrooms.

For the last few years Ron and his wife Grace have shared the chores connected with the operation of the building.   Grace has become proficient in cleaning, painting and even minor dry wall work.  Ron puts in his day in the shop and then helps with whatever needs to be done in the rooming house.

The building had been a rooming house for 20 years before Ron bought it, often housing performers from the Warwick Musical Tent in the 50s and 60s.

A rooming house is really a throwback to the past, but apparently the concept still works.  Rooms don’t stay vacant for long and currently there are no vacancies.

In addition to keeping up to date on hair styles and fads over the years, Ron Mello was active in the Jaycees, the Chamber of Commerce, and as a promoter of Main Street.  He was also a member of the then volunteer fire department.  The main station is right across the street from his shop and once in a while he would charge out the door in response to an alarm, leaving a customer in the chair with a partial hair cut.