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The Harry Macklin Family of Chapel Hill
by Charly Mann
What makes Chapel Hill great is the people, and great people usually come from incredible families. The Harry and Sybil Macklin family was one of these. Besides owning and running one of most quintessential Chapel Hill eateries, they produced three remarkable children: Ralph, Arlene, and Rosalie.
Harry (and later Ralph) Macklin House on Noble Street in downtown Chapel Hill
Ralph has made his mark on Chapel Hill in a variety of ways from restaurateur and top-notch poker player, to one of the most lighthearted souls to inhabit the Southern Part of Heaven. I also know several very bright people who knew him well who say he is incredibly smart. Ralph graduated from UNC with a degree in Industrial Relations.
Ralph Macklin, Chapel Hill High School 1957 Senior picture
His sister Arlene is also very bright, but my impression is that she is much more practical and focused than her brother. I started noticing Arlene when I was in the 7th grade at Chapel Hill Junior High School and she was an 11th grader at the High School next door. She made an indelible impression because she had a maturity and seriousness that was years beyond her actual age. She also was one of the best-dressed and most attractive young women in Chapel Hill. These attributes swept a Durham boy named Barrie Bergman off his feet, and they were married just a few months after she graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 1963.
Arlene Sharon Macklin, at 17 in 1962 - Junior Year Photo
Arlene and Barrie opened the Record Bar on Henderson Street in 1963, which was the first of more than one hundred record stores that Barrie would go on to open all over the United States. Arlene and Barrie now live in Santa Barbara.
FRONT ROW: Arlene Macklin - Senior Class Treasurer, Gale Green - Secretary, Eva Blaine - Associate Justice
BACK ROW: George Thompson - Vice-President, David McConnell - President
Arlene Sharon Macklin and other members of 1963 Chapel Hill High School Senior Class. The quote under her name says, "A little word in kindness spoken, a motion or a tear, has often healed the heart that's broken, and made a friend sincere," which is from A Little Word by Daniel Clement Colesworthy
Arlene and Barrie Bergman House - 612 Greenwood Road (This house was on my paper route before the Bergman's owned it)
Barrie Bergman – Mr. Arlene Macklin
Barrie Bergman, Arlene’s husband, lived in Chapel Hill most of his adult life. Barrie also long ago switched allegiance to UNC over his alma mater Duke.
Barrie is deservedly a legendary figure in the music business. His vision and hard work created a chain of more than 200 stores, The Record Bar and Tracks, that has never been rivaled in quality, selection, or customer service. Many of my contemporaries incorrectly believe Barrie lucked into the music business because his Dad owned the Record Bar in Durham in the early 1960s. The truth is that it was Barrie's uncle who owned that store, and that Barrie learned the music business from working with him, starting as I recall, at about the age of twelve. Barrie's Dad, Mr. B, as he was known, was a wonderful man who really cared about his customers, but it was Barrie who knew music. When Barrie's Dad took over the record store in Durham, it was already Barrie's intention to make his mark in the music business. I have heard from several people who knew Barrie that he planned to go to New York City in the early 60's and get a job in the music business. I am confident he would have been very successful at starting a record label that would have rivaled the likes of Atlantic, Electra, and A&M Records. After all he had a passion and an early background in the music business, and certainly had better connections to southern soul, rock, and folk than anyone else in the industry.
As luck would have it Barrie agreed to work for his Dad for a few years to expand the Record Bar, first in Chapel Hill, then to Raleigh, followed by a second store in Durham. Under Barrie’s leadership the company doubled its size almost every year until 1989 when the chain was sold to the Dutch company Superclub for, as I recall, about 200 million dollars. It is true that Barrie got his start in the record business at the best possible time, just as he sold out as the decline of the music business began, but no one else could do what Barrie did so well, and that was running well stocked record stores, primarily in malls, run by people who loved music and loved selling it to others. A unique trait of Barrie’s is his ability to learn and not repeat mistakes. He candidly admits several terrible senior personnel choices he made, but throughout his career he has gained from those experiences and become one of the best judges of business character on the planet.
Comments:
Charly Mann
2:09 PM Fri 6/26/2009
I never worked for the Record Bar, but have been in the music business most of my life. I first met Barrie when I was eleven and use to hitch-hike from Chapel Hill to Durham to buy records at the original Record Bar at Church and Main Street. A few years later when he opened the store on Henderson Street I felt like nirvana had come to Chapel Hill. Barrie sold me my first stereo phonograph record, and actually delivered it to my house when I was thirteen. Over the years, as a competitor and a friend to many of his top management team like Fred Traub and Harry Clements and relations including his sister and former brother-in-law Bill Golden, I learned a lot more about Barrie. By coincidence over the last few years I have been friends with several women who are loyal users of BARE ESSENTIALS; a company Barrie helped make one of the most successful cosmetics firms in the world.
At one time I worked for the Record and Tape Center in Durham, just a block away from the main Record Bar and their then corporate offices. Very often Barrie and his management team and the Record and Tape Center employees would find themselves eating breakfast at the same small diner that was half way between our two stores run by a wonderful woman named Alice.
Born-In-The-USA
1:39 PM Fri 6/26/2009
You seem to know a lot about Barrie Bergman and The Record Bar. Did you use to work for them? I would guess you must have been at least a manager. I once worked in one of their stores in Charlotte in 1977 and 78.
KC1946
11:26 AM Fri 6/26/2009
I was a neighbor of the Bergman's on Sugarberry Road. Do you know what their children are doing these days?
Gail Morrison
9:55 AM Fri 6/26/2009
What a fascinating family. Please do more profiles like this of other Chapel Hill families.
B Hightower
2:04 PM Thu 6/25/2009
Few people know that Arlene was manager of the Record Bar in Chapel Hill when Barrie went to Raleigh to open their store in North Hills. She was also the company's "Rock of Gilbrater" and Barrie's partner in every aspect of life.
Check out our other website:
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Investment strategies and advice about Apple Inc. and related technology companies by Charly Mann. www.appleinvesting.com
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
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After my last message, I will try and improve my spelling. I loved the Record Bar. I came from a rural area when I started UNC in 1966 and subsequently, I did not have access to many records. When I first came to the Record Bar, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I usually went once a week to get a 45 (usually Motown-don't you miss that great sound) or a 33 RPM album (such as Mantovani, Henry Mancini, Percy Faith, George Shearing, Rod McKuen, Glenn Yarborough, Ray Conniff Singers). I would listen to music on WCHL or at the Graham Student Union and go to the Record Bar to find the music. I have eclectic tastes, obviously, including rock and the Record Bar never disappointed me. Gosh, I miss that place.