Friday, August 20, 1999

Price Hill mourns loss of 'neighbors'

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Salon owners killed in boating accident

BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Restaurant owner Alex Sebastian wipes tears for next-door salon owners Scott and Pam Martini. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        For more than 20 years, three family-owned businesses grew side by side on Glenway Avenue in Price Hill. They were comfortable places, where customers were friends and greeted by first names.

        But on Monday night, the second-generation owners of Mr. Martini's Hair Designers, Scott and Pam Martini, died in a boat crash on the Ohio River.

        And by noontime Thursday, a day after their bodies were found near the Watertown Marina area at Dayton, Ky., dozens of friends, neighbors and customers had fashioned a memori al from flowers, balloons and notes in front of the darkened salon.

        “I'm proud that they were able to touch so many people,” Ben Martini, Scott's father, said Thursday afternoon. “It makes me feel great.”

Pam and Scott Martini | ZOOM |

        Scott and Pam Martini were boating with friends Ken and Kim Middendorf of Cleves after a concert by the rock band Black Sabbath at Riverbend Music Center. Mrs. Middendorf was the only passenger on their Stingray Rally Sport who survived the collision. They were hit from behind by another speedboat.

        The deaths of Scott Martini, 36, and his wife of six years — Pam Martini was 32 — have been felt throughout Price Hill and Westwood. These are communities where generations of family live within blocks of each other and the number of family- owned businesses holds its own against cookie-cutter franchises.

        In 1959, Ben Martini opened his hair salon. Ten years later, Italian-born Peppe Ramundo started a tailoring businesses next door. In 1976, on the corner of Glenway and Sidney Road, Greek immigrant Alex Sebastian hung out a sign for his restaurant.

Carla Shappelle looks over a memorial in front of the Martini's salon. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The trio of storefront shops have since shared hundreds of customers. People could get a haircut and go next door for a gyro. Many a groom rented his tuxedo from Mr. Ramundo's shop and walked next door to make sure his hair looked just right for his wedding day.

        The families watched each others' children grow and gradually come into the businesses. Carmen Ramundo, 40, is now in business with his father, and Helen, 24, and Jenny Sebastian, 21, have worked as waitresses for their father for years.

        “Every day, we passed each other at the stores. The kids complained about their parents. The parents complained about the kids,” Helen Sebastian said Thursday at the restaurant. “And Scott cut all of our hair.”

        He also cut Peppe Ramundo's hair.

        “I've known Scott since he was little,” he said. “He was such a good boy. It's a beautiful family, so affectionate, so kind. They were so young.”

        Rain fell off and on Thursday afternoon. As the lunch crowd thinned out, Alex Sebastian looked out his window and wept.

        “It's just terrible,” he said. “Scott and Pam were in here all the time getting food and drinks. They were great neighbors.

        “Ben came in the other day. He gave me the key to the store and asked me to check in. What could I say? I hugged him. He hugged me. He cried. I cried. What do you say?”

        He turned to look out the window again. A woman drove up, parked her car at the meter and got out. She walked to the window and, while holding an umbrella, signed her name to a card.

        “I teach nails. Pam took all my classes,” said Carla Shappelle, 34, of Bridgetown, who works at Paragon Salon in nearby Dent. “They were good together and good in business together. It's just so sad.”

        Pam Martini was a nail technician and determined to contribute her fair share to the business.

        “She told me she was in there pumping every day and doing her part,” said her father, Jim Barnes, of West Chester. His wife and Pam's mother, Nancy Barnes, died in March from cancer. She was 57.

        “I've had a damn good year, haven't I?” Mr. Barnes said Thursday night. “Things were going so good for them. They had built their house in Hidden Valley (Dearborn County) two years ago. They put a pool in three weeks ago. They were starting to see some results for all of their hard work.”

        The Martini family's reach extends throughout the neighborhood. Scott and Pam Martini's funeral arrangements are with the Ralph Meyer & Deters Funeral Home in Price Hill. It's owned by Terrence Deters and his wife, Terena Deters.

        Scott Martini gave their daughter, Cassie, now 6, her first haircut when she was 2.

        “He made it a "big-girl' experience for Cassie,” said Mrs. Deters, who also had her hair done at Martini's. “Scott let Cassie hold the mirror. He would always move his hands around your head when you were telling him what you wanted done. He did that for Cassie, too.

        “Scott and his dad were fixtures. They were always there. And now?”

        The salon will not reopen, Ben Martini said Thursday. He had given his son his first barber chair. The sight of it empty would be too much for him.

        “I was going to work another year, but I can't,” he said. “I'd been working three days a week. This is it.

        “I can't go back in.”

Boaters cautious in wake of deaths

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