By Rebecca Goodman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mr. Durrell

Before there was Best Buy or Circuit City, Hi-Fi Audio Inc. in Walnut Hills was the best place to buy stereos and record players in Cincinnati.

James Eldridge Durrell opened it in 1952 - the dawn of the Golden Age of high-fidelity equipment - and presided over its growth into one of the biggest retailers in the Midwest, according to his daughter, Virginia de Rohan of Hyde Park.

Baby boomers heavily patronized the store until Mr. Durrell sold it in 1977. Selling audio equipment wasn't his first choice in careers, but he did make a success of it.

Mr. Durrell, 90, died Monday at the Deupree Community in Hyde Park.

A fourth-generation Cincinnatian, he spent most of his life in East Walnut Hills, graduating from the old Walnut Hills High School, the University of Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Durrell's grandfather James Griffith operated the construction company that built Music Hall and the John Shillito Building, among other Cincinnati landmarks.

Mr. Durrell's love of music dates to his days as a choirboy at the Church of the Advent. He later sang solos for the Baker Hunt Foundation.

He decided to leave Cincinnati for New York City in the late 1930s to take voice lessons and to launch a singing career, but he ended up returning to Cincinnati just before the United States entered World War II. "He just felt he couldn't make it" as a singer, his daughter said.

Mr. Durrell went to work at Wright Aeronautical, building airplanes during the war.

He decided to go into business, opening his store in O'Bryonville in 1952. It proved to be an opportune time for selling and installing audio equipment because of the rapid advancement in high fidelity.

Mr. Durrell purchased several stores on Woodburn Avenue in East Walnut Hills and turned them into one big store, into which he moved Hi-Fi Audio. He enjoyed great success at that location for more than 20 years.

"Then Swallen's came into the act and undercut him so terribly that he just couldn't compete," his daughter said.

Mr. Durrell was a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity.

Pauline Osborne Durrell, his wife of 65 years, died in 1995.

In addition to his daughter, Virginia, survivors include a son, James E. Durrell Jr. of Westwood; two grandsons, and four great-grandchildren.

The funeral is private. Burial will be at Spring Grove Cemetery.

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com