
DATE: Saturday, November 29, 1997           TAG: 9711290235

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  100 lines

THE CORNER SHOE PHARMACY FAMILY BUSINESS COMBINE FOOT KNOW-HOW WITH CUSTOMER COURTESY.

Lucian Montagna Jr. bends down to help an elderly woman try on pair after pair of shoes. In his dedication, one can see his great-grandfather, Guiseppe, hunched over a cobbler's bench.

``How do they feel?'' Montagna asks the woman as she takes her first steps in low-heeled black pumps. ``I can put a pad in there if there's a gap, but not now because there is swelling.''

Lucian Montagna Jr., 37, is the latest in a long line of Montagnas who have made it their business for 75 years to keep folks in Hampton Roads comfortably shod. His father, Lucian Sr., who died earlier this year, and grandfather, Frank, helped build the business of which he is now president.

``Let me tell you a little secret,'' Lucian Montagna Jr. tells the fussy woman. ``When you're young, there are strong ligaments in your foot. Later, they spread out.''

``You think I ought to buy that shoe?'' she asks.

``At $38.50 it's a great buy,'' he says.

The woman, who declines to give her name, says she's been a Montagna's customer more years than she can count. ``His father and grandfather,'' she says. ``They've always been the most legitimate business people. Honest, and try to fit you properly.''

Montagna's had its origins with the immigration of Lucian's shoemaker great-grandfather from Sicily in 1880. Guiseppe learned his trade beginning at 7, working seven days a week, often as long as 17 hours a day.

Five years after his arrival here, he sent for his wife, Santa Paola, and their two children, Salvatore and Carmelina. The couple had eight more children - Frank, Jennie, Charlie, John, Annie, George, Tony and Julius.

Guiseppe opened a shoe repair shop on Norfolk's Main Street in 1900. Later, he moved to an address on Bank Street, then Granby.

Of the couple's seven boys, all but two took their business cues from their father. Frank, George and Julius opened their first shoe store on Granby across from their father's shop in 1922.

Another store, in Portsmouth, met its demise in a 1932 fire. Twenty-six years ago, the Montagnas ventured to Virginia Beach.

But it's the Granby Street store, which moved to its present site in 1949 - that's a landmark.

The family has stuck by the store despite the demise of many nearby retail shops. Lucian Montagna Jr. says the determination is a combination of being a property-owner and having faith in the resurrection of downtown business. Besides, he says, ``it's hard to give up when you've been there so long'' for loyal customers.

But business in Granby's heyday was very different than today, he says.

``There is no comparison,'' he says. ``Back then, it was elbow to elbow, lots of walk-in traffic, and we weren't so much a destination.''

Lucian Montagna Jr. has begun looking around for another location, in Chesapeake, but he doesn't want to get too big. That would limit his ability to give customers personal attention, he says.

``We're still considered small potatoes,'' he says. ``We're not even on the shoe sale percentage list in these cities, but we're not after the mass numbers. This is just a quiet little business - a niche market. We specialize in service, sizes and selection.''

Montagna, who spends time at both the Norfolk and Virginia Beach locations, is a pedorthist. His knowledge of anatomy and diseases of the foot and ankle helps him create shoes for people with problem feet. Footwear can even be custom-molded.

``We're like the shoe pharmacy,'' he says. Many doctors - orthopedists, podiatrists, vascular surgeons - refer patients to Montagna's.

``He changed my life,'' said Paul Johnson, a Tidewater Community College instructor and Portsmouth resident.

Johnson, who had bursitis in his heel, went into Montagna's ``by accident'' because of the Granby Street location. ``It was Montagna who got me into shoes that for the first time in my life I've been comfortable with.''

One of Montagna's most challenging customers was a man whose leg had been crushed in an automobile accident. His leg, Montagna said, bowed out in a ``fixed deformity,'' and the regulation orthopedic shoes he had only made things worse. Montagna fit him with orthopedic footgear angled to the outside with inserts that redistributed the man's weight. The customer has now returned to work.

Tony Montagna, the last surviving child of Guiseppe and Santa Paola, lives in Florida. He is 97.

Lucian Jr. is the last Montagna in the shoe business, except for his wife, Sandra, who helps out at the stores. It's too early to tell, Montagna says, whether either of his two children will want to join him someday.

``I feel like the Lone Ranger,'' he says.

But he is unconcerned for the future. ``The future is pedorthics,'' says Montagna. ``We're in a niche market. We'll never be a tremendous store. We'll do a nice, quiet business. Make a living. Pay our bills.''

And keep a lot of people on their feet. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]

STEVE EARLEY

The Virginian-Pilot

Lucian Montagna Jr...

Members of the Montagna family from left: Frank, George and Frank's

sons, Lucian and Joseph. Frank and George helped to open the first

store in 1922.

Newspaper ads for Montagna's Shoes from past years. KEYWORDS: PROFILE