Alvah Goldsmith was a foreman at an auto dealership in Southold, Long Island, in 1923 when he ponied up the money to buy a 4-hp Evinrude outboard for his personal use. He liked the motor so much that he wrote the manufacturer to say so. To his surprise, company founder Ole Evinrude wrote back and said that if Goldsmith liked the motor that much, maybe he’d like to become a dealer. The process was simple, he wrote, requiring the purchase of one more engine to sell.
Goldsmith was intrigued by the idea and ran it by his father, who was instantly skeptical. “I don’t know who would buy the cussed things,” he told his son. Goldsmith bought the engine anyway, and the decision took his life in a new direction. It enabled him to start a business that would become one of the country’s oldest continuously operating marine dealerships. Today, Goldsmith’s Boat Shop in Southold is 100 years old.
When Goldsmith died in 1980, his son Alvah Jr.—who goes by his childhood nickname of Skip—took over and continued to grow the business for almost four decades. In recent years, Skip, now 83 and still president, has given more control of the operations to his sons Glenn and Craig, the third generation of Goldsmiths to manage the family company.
“Nobody knows the official date of when the business started, but the letter from Evinrude was written in December 1923,” Glenn says. Even so, the brothers decided to celebrate the centennial last August, in peak boating season. During the festivities, stories about the history of the yard were shared and enjoyed.
“After Evinrude made the dealership offer to my father, he sold motors off the front porch of his house,” Skip says. “Then he started storing motors in the barn and selling them to fishermen and other residents who wanted to get out on the water for pleasure.”
Glenn adds: “My grandfather was the founder of the recreational marine industry on the North Fork of Long Island.”
In 1931, Goldsmith moved his shop and business from a small inland site to two acres on Southold Bay at Founders Landing. The business—which survived the Depression and the collapse of a new storage shed during the 1938 hurricane—remained small and local until Goldsmith got involved in building boats for the U.S. Navy in World War II.
“He wanted to get involved because he believed in the war effort and he figured his business would fit right into making boats for the military,” Skip says. “So he had to make trips in to Whitehall Street in New York City to meet with the Navy brass. After a bunch of trips, they finally gave him the okay.” That was the company’s entree into the boatbuilding business.
“The first contract was for 10 boats from 24 to 35 feet long, built to carry torpedoes, bombs and stuff like that that,” Skip says. “They would have to load on seaplanes in the Pacific.” The company had 48 employees at the time. The completed “plane rearming boats” were put through speed trials, weighed and put on railroad flatcars. The property was fenced-in with guards during the war.
With the return of peace, Goldsmith in 1946 bought the 17-acre former Sanford Brickyard dating back to the late 1800s; it was located a mile and a half from Founders Landing on Main Road along Mill Creek, where the company is still located. Goldsmith’s, with about 10 employees, ceased building boats and shifted to selling and servicing small craft for the booming recreational market.
“I started working here when I was 14,” Skip says. “Although, I was fooling around the place earlier than that.”
Skip knew early on that his future lay in continuing the family business. “I had that in mind growing up, and when I got my first boat,” he says. “I tried to pick up as much knowledge as I possibly could when I was younger.”
Although he suspected his career would begin and end at the marina, Skip attended college and did a stint as a U.S. Air Force mechanic before returning to the boat shop in 1964. He became the owner when his father died of pancreatic cancer in 1980 at age 74.
Covid-19 persuaded Skip to take a step back from work around the yard because he was worried about being near a lot of people as he got older. The pandemic also took a toll on the business.
“Covid just about shut everything down,” Skip says. “It didn’t come back until this past year. It was a situation where you couldn’t get parts, motors or boats, and people wanted to buy. And I’m talking about boats that sell for more than $100,000. It’s come back gradually, but not quite to where it was before. There are still shortages of things.”
Closing the business, Skip says, “never entered our minds. We just kept plugging along and wondering what’s next.”
Craig, 48, graduated from high school in 1992, went to college and worked at different jobs. “But everything seemed to draw me back into the family business,” he says. “In 1999, I decided this was going to be my career.”
Glenn, 46, says he started working at the marina when he was 10 years old: “Both my brother and I started pumping gas and working at the Founders Landing location for a couple of years. Then we shifted down to this yard and worked summers and weekends. After I went away to college, I came back and started working here in 1999.”
In 2015, Glenn left to work for Sea Tow, the international marine assistance company founded in Southold, while still working part-time at Goldsmith’s. He became a town trustee like his grandfather. He came back to the family firm full-time in 2020 as his father’s health became more fragile.
“As far as I’m concerned, they are doing a super job,” Skip says. “Glenn has got the business aspect down, and Craig is a salesperson who knows how to get along as far as sales are concerned. He remembers people’s names and their whole family history. The two of them make a great combination.
Glenn says he often wonders how his father ran the shop single-handedly for all those years as the business was growing: “My dad did it seven days a week, often going back to the shop after dinner with his family.”
Since Evinrude is no longer building engines, Goldsmith now sells Yamaha outboards and boats by Scout, DuraNautic and Achilles. The company rents 110 slips and is building up the eroded spit of land that protects the outer dock area, to construct additional slips for owners on a long waiting list.
“A lot of our customers have been around for a long time because this is a family business,” Glenn says. “We treat them as part of our family.”
Their oldest customer is Joe Stepnowski, 80, of Southold, who has been a client of Goldsmith’s for more than four decades. “I bought my first boat at the end of the season and didn’t have a place to put it,” Stepnowski recalls. “I shopped a couple of marinas, but the prices were really high. Then I saw Skip, who told me to put the boat in and don’t worry about it. He said, ‘If you have the boat next year and you want to come in here, then we will discuss money.’ That’s why I’m still here. The people at Goldsmith’s treat you like a customer, not a number, and they’re very knowledgeable.”
Craig adds: “We’re seeing a lot of people who dealt with my dad, and now their kids are coming and doing their boating with us, a new generation, so it’s nice.”
The family tends to keep employees around for a long time too. Mark Hodun, 56, of Riverhead, has worked two stints at the boat shop, initially for 13 years starting in the mid-1980s. After leaving to work at another marina, he returned 12 years ago.
“I do a little bit of everything,” he says. “The Goldsmiths are easy to work for. There are other places where they are on you all the time. I’ve been here long enough that they know what I can do.”
Many people ask what happened to Alvah’s original 1923 Evinrude. The family doesn’t know, but they have collected other antique outboards made by the company, including one from 1913. They’re in the process of creating a mini-museum to show off the collection.
As for the future ownership of the family enterprise, some say the reins could be handed over to Glenn’s sons, Landon and Reed, who are 15 and 13, respectively. They have worked at the marina pumping gas and doing other chores, but the family isn’t putting pressure on them to decide their futures now.
“I think it’s there for them if they want it,” Glenn says. “But at the same time, they should keep their options open.”
This article was originally published in the September 2023 issue.
