Sheryll Jackmans’ Seaside Home a story of driving entrepreneurialism
By Bob Page
After jumping through a multitude of bureaucratic hulu hoops, Sheryll Jackman is nearing the opening of her fabulous new Seaside Home store in La Jolla.
The permitting process is cumbersome at best, even when you hire a respected architect who is paid to know his way around the city’s obstacles. Unfortunately, that is of little matter to the city staff. It seems as if they enjoy annoying you.
Regardless, that is all behind Jackman now and she is holding good thoughts for a Jan. 20 opening.
She has leased 32,000 square feet in the building that formerly housed Saks Fifth Avenue. She’ll be joining Brooks Brothers store in the location at the corner of Herschel and Wall in downtown La Jolla. The New Seaside Homes store will occupy the balance of the first floor, which it will be sharing with Brooks Brothers, plus the entire second floor.
“We’ll not be opening the second floor for at least a year and we’ll also be subletting some of that space to tenants which will fit in with the atmosphere which we’ll be trying to create,” Jackman said.
Jackman closed her Rancho Santa Fe store a few months ago and will be closing her current La Jolla location on Girard as soon as the new location is ready for occupancy.
The Jackman story is one of success and driving entrepreneurialism. Sheryll and her husband, Harry, started out in El Cajon in the early 1970s with a company called Jackman Wheels. “We were a one-man band manufacturing white wheels that went on Jeeps and off-road vehicles and buggies,” said Jackman. “We found a magazine called Four Wheel Drive, placed a small ad and the next thing we knew our phone was ringing off the hook. Calls were coming in from all over the country and that was the genesis of how we got started in business.”
From there Sheryll went back to school for three years to get a degree in designing as the Jackmans picked up and moved from El Cajon to Coronado.
When asked what her driving force was in those years with a young family to raise, she said, “Fear! We had four kids to bring up and educate so there was no question that we would continue to look for opportunities.”
Seaside Home began as Island Provenance in Coronado in 1996 with Sheryll and their oldest daughter, Caylee, when they decided to create a retail presence to enhance the family’s home-building business known as The Jackman Group, which was founded in 1983.
“We sold mainly antique furniture and a mix of antique and new accessories, lamps and mirrors,” said Jackman. “Around 2003, we made a decision to replace the antique furniture with primarily Baker Furniture’s Milling Road collection which is a very successful line of British and French Colonial-inspired antique reproduction case goods and upholstery.
That was the same year that Sheryll decided to change the name to Seaside Home, a nod to their sister company, Jackman Papery, owned by their youngest daughter, Jori, and located in the Spreckles Building in Coronado.
The original La Jolla store was opened when the Baker folks asked Sheryll to expand her presence in the San Diego market as their exclusive representative.
Sheryll deflects any suggestion that she is a “salesperson,” although, given her success, that would seem to be a bit of a stretch. What she knows better than most in the retail furniture business is great quality. “I know good quality and I can tell you how a sofa’s put together by Baker compared to how a sofa is put togther out of a warehouse in L.A.,” she said. “I can show you a lot of differences and why one is more expensive than the other. Or why you don’t want one from China.”
That speaks volumes as to the upper demographic that Seaside Home seeks to serve. “ We’re not Mor or Jerome’s. There is definitely a niche market for that. But what Seaside Home is determined to do is to provide a total service, a coastal lifestyle and show its clientele how they can take nice things from our store and use them in a more casual way.”
For the Jackmans, moving into the world of retail seemed a logical step from their early beginnings in doing home design and architectural construction for 26 years. They were building mid- to high-end spec homes with their design elements, which tended to be, like the homes they were building, very upscale.
The Jackman Group also does a lot of boutique commercial work. They have been very involved at Seaport Village and did the Classical Eyes store in Fashion Valley, the Hotel Del’s Duchess of Windsor cottage and the Spreckles Building in Coronado. They have just completed a 11,000-square-foot, three-story home in Coronado.
Then there is the real estate side of the business. Sheryll originally hung her license with one of the larger firms in Coronado until she got the bug to do deals on her own. That, of course, forced her to go back to school again to get her broker’s license.
“We were only doing a few deals at a time and while they were all high end, I wasn’t satisfied with the commission splits.” And Jackman Realty was launched.
Son Josh is involved in both the construction and real estate side of his parents’ business, although he and his wife recently moved to Boise, Idaho. He flies down every two weeks to give his parents a hand. Another son, Brent, owns a cabinet and wood milling business in Imperial Beach, and lends a hand whenever needed.
Seaside Homes is also the exclusive San Diego dealer for Carpe Diem, Beds of Sweden, Ralph Lauren as well as Stickley. Seaside also has a linen line from an Italian family, owned since 1840, coming in, a French ceramic dinner line and others to be announced soon.
When the second floor is completed at the new location, there will be a wine and coffee bar, an outdoor patio and a lounge area for entertaining, which Sheryll plans to make available for catered parties and for the ASID and architects who will continue to be important auxiliary assets for Seaside Home.
