Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
1980.
Home interest rates were 16 percent. It wasn’t the best time to buy anywhere, much less in the big city of Dallas.
“We had saved a bunch of money with me doing artwork, and my wife had scholarships. We were going to buy a fixer upper.”
So, the young married couple started looking.
“There was this one house we went to see. It was so ugly, my wife wouldn’t get out of the car. I said, ‘Honey, it’s a great fixer upper!”
Honey responded with one word.
“No.”
“We left town, and the realtor called and said the house may not look so ugly because the owner is offering 12 ½ percent interest owner financing.”
Honey reconsidered.
“She said, ‘You know, that house really just got pretty all of the sudden!’ So, we bought it. It was ugly and we fixed it up.”
They cut down the overgrowth. Rolled on a fresh coat of paint. Replaced that god-awful pink bathroom tile. They did all the work.
“We were poor.”
His first remodeling project was a success. So much so, it would be the first of many.
“Growing up with it, you see all the aspects. You see what your Dad does, and you see how he does it, so it’s not a mystery. For years, he would go to a job and I would be walking around looking at the foundation, wiring, concrete, and framing. To me, it wasn’t really a mystery.”
69-year-old Jeb Breithaupt, who you see all over television doing commercials as owner of the local Re-Bath franchise, told me that story, and his story, during lunch at a place he chose, Superior Grill. Jeb had shrimp tacos and unsweet tea to drink. I enjoyed the Mesquite Chicken Salad, and water with lemon.
“I think in 3-D . . . . I will see it in my mind, and I can take a room or a house and turn it around in my mind and look at dimensions and aspects.”
The only child of a bricklayer, and a legal secretary, Jeb was born at the old Schumpert hospital in Shreveport, and grew up in the Broadmoor area. In third grade, Jeb’s mom put her son in an art class. That, plus the fact his father was pursuing his desire to be a homebuilder, gave birth to Jeb’s artistic talents.
“(Dad) had a bedroom that was an office. He had a drafting table – it was T-squared, old school – and blueprints. We had a machine that reproduced (blueprints). It had that ammonia smell. He had a book of probably 40 designs of houses. That was very unusual for that time period. With most builders, you would go to a drafting service. But he came up with his own designs. I admired that.”
After high school (Captain Shreve), and becoming a “proud” commercial art graduate of Caddo Career Center, Jeb went to Louisiana Tech. But he soon decided to pursue architecture.
“My dad was a designer, a builder, and a remodeler. He was my role model.” At the time, Tech didn’t have an accredited architectural program, so Jeb transferred to LSU in Baton Rouge. That is where he earned a five-year architectural degree, before getting his master’s degree in business administration.
“To me, art was so easy. I would see these people struggling. My wife says she can’t draw a stick figure. To me, it was amazing that people couldn’t draw. When I was in school, I would finish the project the day before, and my comrades would be up all night until the last minute finishing it. (For me), it was like swimming downstream.”
Jeb’s talents really shined when he began doing Intaglio. “It’s a 500-year-old process where you draw on a copper plate using acid and wax. Rembrandt did it. It’s that old. Then, you have a copper plate that you print off of, and you print signed and numbered prints. I loved pen and ink drawings.”
When Jeb was a college sophomore, he had his first show. His pen and ink prints sold out.
“I decided I could do this and make some money, so I started selling through some different galleries. I branched out and got an agent who sold for me in the southern states.”
In Dallas, Jeb was doing well with his drawings, and his wife of now 48 years, Robin, was a successful social worker for a major medical center. That’s when Jeb’s dad got sick.
“It was either come back to Shreveport and take over the business or close it. It’s something I had always wanted to do, so I decided to go for it.”
Unfortunately, the local economy wasn’t conducive to owning a home building and remodeling business.
“I hit it at just the right time,” Jeb sarcastically told me. “The market was collapsing. That was 1984. Last one out, turn out the lights. ’84-’88. In ’88 and ’89, it finally turned around. But I learned how to dial for dollars. You had to call people . . . . You had to buckle down and grind it out. You had to do something different. People weren’t coming in the door. I had to learn that in any economy, somebody is going to buy what you’re selling, but you’ve got to find them. I had a long list of people I called every day of the week. ‘Hey, I’ll build you a doghouse.’ You took whatever you could get, grind it out, and pinch pennies.”
Jeb survived, and in 1997, the father of four children began focusing strictly on remodeling.
“I did some fun, big houses. I did some really big stuff, and some small stuff, too. But it was custom work.”
Nine years ago, Jeb once again shifted his focus. He bought the area rights to the Re-Bath franchise and began building the local operation from scratch. He has 22 employees.
“I’m proud of bathroom remodeling because I’m helping people. There’s a couple and they want to stay in their house, and their kids are saying, ‘You need to move to assisted living.’ We make their bathroom accessible, and they can stay there for a lot of years.”
Looking for Jeb? Just turn on your TV.
“I was in an elevator going to get a building permit downtown at Government Plaza. I was talking to somebody about something, and this lady turns around and says, ‘You’re that bathroom guy!’ Yeah. Guilty!’”
Assuming Jeb had a bathroom remodel job to get back to, or another commercial to make, I asked my final question. As always, what is it about his life story that might be helpful to others?
“Get a mentor . . . . When starting a business, like anything in life, you don’t know what you don’t know. Read a book, or talk to somebody, or get a mentor. See what you want to do, and go ask someone (for help). Most people don’t want to do that. It’s too much work, and they already think they know it all . . . . You could be putting all your energy into one thing, and it’s the wrong thing. You should have been putting your energy into something else.”
Like getting rid of that god-awful pink bathroom tile.
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.
The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.