Father and daughter retailers: Scott Pyburn’s Harrison Ltd. marks 30 years as daughter Courtenay Bullock opens own shop

Opening a small business isn’t easy, but sustaining a business for the long term is even harder.

Approximately 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years, 45% fail during the first five years and 65% during the first 10 years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, some businesses beat the odds.

Harrison Ltd. in Mountain Brook Village — an upscale men’s clothing store owned and operated by Scott Harrison Pyburn — celebrated its 30th anniversary March 6.

When asked about the anniversary’s significance, Pyburn said he takes a “great deal of satisfaction” from the store’s relationships with its customers.

Some of those patrons have shopped at Harrison Ltd. “for 15 or 20 or 30 years,” he said.

“They’re friends of the store and friends of mine,” Pyburn said. “They’re not just customers.”

The store’s anniversary is “a huge milestone,” said Courtenay Bullock, Pyburn’s daughter.

Bullock said she admires the way her dad stuck it out through “the hardest times” in America, like the 2008 recession and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“His perseverance and his determination to get up everyday and go put in the work is incredible,” she said.

And as Harrison Ltd. begins its fourth decade, Bullock has followed in her dad’s footsteps.

She opened her own women’s clothing shop, Le Weekend, in English Village in December.

Bullock also hopes that she can emulate her father’s long, successful run at Harrison Ltd. with her own shop.

“I hope that we are here forever,” she said.

A Florida native, Pyburn, 59, has lived in Homewood since he was 9 years old. He earned a degree in business administration from Birmingham-Southern College and gained experience selling men’s clothing while working for Sons & Harwell during and after his time at BSC.

While putting together his business plan for Harrison Ltd. in 1991, Pyburn drew a lot of information from “Men’s Wear Retailer,” a trade journal.

At that time, according to the publication, the average lifespan of a men’s clothing shop was seven years, Pyburn said.

“I thought, ‘Hopefully, we will do better than that,’” he said.

In fact, at his seven-year mark, Pyburn paid off his first commercial loan and was free of long-term debt.

Over the decades, Pyburn said he’s coped with “ebbs and flows” in the clothing business.

The industry sees lots of changes and trends — “some of which I like, some of which I don’t,” Pyburn said.

However, you have to adapt if you wish to “remain commercially viable,” he said.

For example, Harrison Ltd. sells its products on the internet.

But Pyburn said the in-store experience is still extremely important for many of his customers.

“If you want to buy a $600 pair of shoes … do you want to order that online or go somewhere where you can put your foot in it?” he said. “What we sell is incredibly tactile.”

He is also proud of the quality products he carries at Harrison Ltd.

“We have curated this assortment of merchandise that is exactly the collection we believe in,” he said.

Pyburn and his wife, Margaret Ann Pyburn, have three daughters. In addition to Bullock, Ann Lacey Pyburn is the youngest daughter and Caroline Pyburn McGarity is the oldest.

As they grew up, the daughters all helped out at the store, which “was really fun,” Bullock said. She said she enjoyed “getting to meet people who walked into the store.”

Bullock took to the retail environment and found her own path into fashion.

“She got something from osmosis from being in here,” Pyburn said. “She was prepared to deal with people.”

From a fashion standpoint, Bullock “always kind of had her own style, and she recognized things that the other girls did not quite recognize,” Pyburn said.

A stint working at Etc. in Mountain Brook Village gave Bullock more retail experience.

Bullock graduated from Auburn University in 2017 with a degree in fashion and apparel design. She then spent three years working in fashion in New York City.

However, she came back to Birmingham in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That’s where this started,” she said. “I had so much time to think to myself.”

In conceiving Le Weekend, Bullock drew on the many Saturdays she spent shopping and picking up merchandising tips at retailers like Barney’s and J. Crew on Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

The stores there treated customers “with this hospitable kindness,” she said.

She was also exposed to a lot of small brands she couldn’t find when she moved back.

Bullock tried to come up with an “overall shopping experience” that Birmingham was missing, she said.

What we sell is incredibly tactile. We have curated this assortment of merchandise that is exactly the collection we believe in.

SCOTT PYBURN

His daughter “has brought something new and exclusive” to Mountain Brook with her list of vendors, Pyburn said.

Bullock operates Le Weekend with the help of Molly Murphy, a long-time friend who is the store’s marketing director.

Murphy “is my right hand, and I could not do it without her,” Bullock said.

“We have so much fun working together,” Murphy added.

Murphy expressed admiration for Bullock and Pyburn.

“They are both such real people, and they give real opinions, and they love people so much, and they have so much integrity and they do things the right away,” she said.

Father and daughter seem to enjoy a great working relationship and mutual respect.

For example, Pyburn doesn’t offer his daughter business advice unless she asks for it, Bullock said.

“I ask him stuff all the time, but he’s also been so confident in me running my own business,” she said. “He was so helpful at every step of the way and still is.”

Pyburn admires Bullock for her commitment to her vision for Le Weekend.

“The thing I admire the most goes back to the vision she laid out in her business plan,” Pyburn said. “She stays in her lane. One of the worst things a small retailer can do is to try to be everything to everybody.”

Bullock praises her father on the same grounds.

“Dad does a good job at staying true to what he believes in, and this shines through the merchandise in the store,” she said.

Now that she is in business herself, Bullock appreciates her dad’s achievement in remaining in business for 30 years.

“I truly don’t think I understood the gravity of running your own business until I was in his shoes,” she said.

Pyburn’s success at Harrison Ltd. “speaks volumes to what he created besides just selling clothes: the relationships and the community that supports him,” Bullock said.