Historic Lark Drugs Passes to New Owner

'Opens~vendays a,weekforBO years'
,-
Historic Lark Drugs passes
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BY.SIMONE WILSON.'
',' . .. ark Drugs in Guerrieville has
changed ownership, but the I!ew owner,
pharmacist
Ron Knutsen', will be
cat-ryingon with tradition as usual.
':Knutsen,
a native of southern
i ' California. who has worked at Lark
Orugssin~e 1972;' bought the store in
,March'from
Mr. and Mrs. Robert
Peper.: He'll be doing some remodeling
buL\vill,'keep the name and "the same
old frie~diyctew" of employees.
His creW includes fellow pharmacist
'Bob Satterthwai~e, who also owns'
Ridenhour Ranch House, Inn, and
bookkeeper' Irene Strombom,
who
during,:i'33 years has worked with four
different oWners and i~" said Knutsen,
"the senior member of the firm."
"That's 35 years," corrected Strom. "PqIll' "See," she said by way of rein for"tihg her figure, "I even bought myself a
watdi. "She
remembers better than
anyone what Lark Drugs used to be like
and' can attest to the continuity of the
business' through the changes in the
community and during the rise and fall
of the seasons.
.. Knutsen said the store was origipally
'.calledBeldtm arid Upp Drug Co. ~nd
wa~ staited ~ometime before the turn'.af
the century in the location. where it is
.tpday. Newton J-,aik and hi~ uncle Fred
Warne b~ught,it in 1915. They changed
'thenamet,o Guerneville Pharmacy, but
when Lark's son Warne Lark purchased
r=LYING- LarkOrugs during World War I, looking west'onFirstStr~et.
Peper is. retired but will, be doing some
How quiet was it?
Today Lark Drugs is bigger than the
.part timework at the store.
"It was so quiet," remembered Strom- original storethe early store expan"You see a lot of businesses come and
born, "that oil a winter afternoon Grant
ded in the '50s to include an adjacent
go here," commented Knutsen, "but the . King would be out in the middl~ of the
market and, restaurant On the cor~er ~
drugstore's
been one of the stable street showing someone how to fly- but it's still in the place it's alway/; been
businesses in the area/' <;)penseven days . cast. " ,
between First Street ,and Main' at Ap
a week for over 80 year~, Lark Drugs is
She remembers the old store as it was mstrong Woods Road. For a short time,
cettainlyone of the community's chamin the late' 40s when she worked there as " while the new store was being built in
'56, Lark Drugs did business where
a 'summer helper on her vacations. A
Perry's Deli IS now. The lotationused to
drug store in ~ small town ,is a kind of
bea summer. 'store' fOI"the';pl'iarmacy"
general Store~,They sold. bathing things
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,'~the"~~~~i~:C!l:I'e
of the street showing
"-,$~-~~;Qne,
how, to'fly-cast."
iijfi, 't948,J~e':ehiuned it Lar~ Drugs.
0/)<-
- pion survivors. Strom born said she is
serving a second generation of kids the children of the kids who used tocome in.to buy candy before headIng for
the movie theatres (there used to be two
in town). After a while, she added, the
old' timers go, but pretty soon people
you wotildn'thave thought of as old
timers become old timers too."
With f~wer year-round residents,
,chool vacations in Guerneville. He Guerneville used to be even more of a
IcC;amea, pharmacist and with his wife tourist town than it is today, and in the
lought the store in 1969. Now that old days the town used to be very quiet
(nutsenhas
purchased Lark Drugs,_ in the winter.
~
,'hi 1956 the,'old building -was torn
:lownandrephll::e~
with the modern
b\iUding,that stands ,on the corner Joqay .
fhenewStore
narrQwly missed being
raiedagaio, ihis time by the fire that
~weptthe downtown in 1964 and burned
~!.f))'avern
and a qancehall.Bob Peper had worked for Lark
:luting the early 1940s, when he spent his
BURDON'S
Continental Cuisine
Cocktails
Dinner Served
6-10 PM Thurs-Mon
Closed Tues & Wed
Champagne.Brunch
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store, where the beer and milk cases are
themselves in the back. (That was before
.now, was one big meat locker, rerri~lllcolor prints.)
During those years the store would : bered Strombom, a cool place in the hot
summer days.
-stay,openlatetin the winter,evenafter
Knutsen, who is also on tbe Board of
the tourists had;gone, and folks' would
Oirectors
of the Russian River Health
come in to sit around the oil stove. '!It
Center,
sees
the growth in the area with
was a meeting place for the town~" said
mixed
feelings.
"Most business people
Strombom.The
tourists left after the
would
rather
see
it stay fairly small," he
Pageant of Fire Mountain and didn't,
return till Memorial Day heralded -the' thought. "No growth is stagnation, but
itdoesn't have to be a developers' nightsummer again. The pageant used to be
"the last big blast of the season, " she mare." He favors slow growth which
retains the rural atmosphere of the River
said. Held the weekend after Labor Day,
area.
it enacted a local Indian legend and conWhatever the make-up of the comcluded with a blaze of, fires.
The
munity, old-tirners, new-timers, and
,pageant was discontinued during the
mid-'70s when a drought made the fires summer part-timers will continue to
come by Lark Drugs.
a hazard and local interest in producing
it waned.
I<I~~ AND
MAI<E:-UP
Gue rnevi lie's
only
full-service
salon
For men
and women
on the patio
Sundays 11-~Eggs Benedict
Relleno Omelet
,Eggs as ,you l~kethemServed with your choice of hani, bacon, sausage links,
- or our ~wli, tU)nlemadePolish Sausa~e'
:,' " 15405River;'oad.':G
erneville869..261S -,THE PAPER MAY 14.MAV20,1982,

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