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Business & Tech

Frank Sinatra Was Here: Owner of Reed's Hobby Shop Does it His Way

Steve Bovee is conductor of model store that has sold "$8.5 million worth of trains" since 1997.

Name: Steve Bovee

Job: Owner, Reed’s Hobby Shop, La Mesa Boulevard

Overview: Reed’s, which specializes in model trains, has been around 50 years. The business started in Oakland, then moved south in 1976. It’s been at its current location since 1979. Bovee, wife Sharon Smith and partner Bruce Cameron bought the shop in 1997, but Bovee bought Cameron’s portion a few years ago when Cameron—who’d been associated with the shop about 30 years—decided to retire.

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Bovee, a St. Augustine High graduate, picked up his love of model trains from his father, a former railroad worker, train hobbyist and craftsman who spent time building intricate models, many of which Steve now displays at his home. Bovee was a longtime customer of Reed’s, and always had the thought in the back of his mind to buy a hobby shop. “When the opportunity came up, I took it,” he says.

His role: Reed worked 17 years for the San Diego Unified School District as director of construction. After buying the shop, he’d spend two or three days a week dropping in, doing the books and helping out. After retiring from the school district about two years ago, he’s at the store six days a week doing the books, working the counter, talking to customers handling shipments and doing advertising and marketing.

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The store has one full-time employee and several part-timers. He says they’ve sold “$8.5 million worth of trains” during their ownership. After a couple of rough years, he says business is picking up again. One trend he’s noticed recently is cash-strapped people looking to sell him old, cherished family train sets.

A helping hand: Bovee’s favorite part of his job is introducing customers to the world of trains. Teaching them about tracks, layouts, picking out an engine and all the accessories. “It’s a lot of fun to get somebody started in the hobby,” he says.

In the Navy: Before working for San Diego Unified, Bovee spent 23 years in the Navy. He retired as a lieutenant commander in 1992. He started as a seaman recruit at San Diego’s Naval Training Center and did a bit of everything—from serving on a submarine to manning a gun mount—before eventually earning his commission and a degree in engineering. He served his final four years at Camp Pendleton as a civil engineer, and oversaw the rehabilitation of the old railroad line on the Marine Corps base.   

It’s a playground: Walk through the doors at Reed’s, and you’re in model train heaven. It has four elaborate train layouts, two for HO scale, one for standard gauge (Lionel) and one N scale  (even smaller than HO). Around the store, too, are railroad-associated antiques Bovee has collected—an old locomotive light (No. 104) over his office door, a bell, a vintage switch lantern, model cars from the 1920s and a time clock that railroad workers used to clock in and out of their jobs.

Celebrity train buffs: The store has a reputation among model train fans. Among its visitors was Frank Sinatra, a customer at Reed’s long before Bovee bought it. Rocker Rod Stewart, Alex Smith (the former Helix and Utah football standout who now quarterbacks the San Francisco 49ers), and Gordon Waller, the late British ’60s singing star of Peter and Gordon also have been customers.

Family: Bovee and his wife—an architect who has helped improve the shop’s design—live in La Mesa and have three adult children. Their boys graduated from Helix; their daughter from Grossmont.

The future: He hopes a person with a love of trains will eventually take over the business, but he doesn’t know what the future holds. His children aren’t interested. “It would be great to get another 50 years out of [the store],” he says.

Quotable: “We’re like the Humane Society for old trains,” Bovee says. “We try to find them new homes where they’ll be appreciated.”

Quotable II: “I really love meeting people and talking to them. I consider it a failure if somebody walks out of my store and I don’t know anything about them.”

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