From left: Pete, Mark and Jason.
It's a warm Wednesday afternoon in late September, and I'm making the pilgrimage from our office in Faneuil Hall to the new home of Parlor Skis in East Boston. It's a straight shot on the Blue Line, to an area of town in which I spend very little time.
Not surprisingly, it isn't exactly easy to find. After getting out at Orient Heights and walking the better part of a mile, I'm creeping around a Planet Fitness, tucked in the back corner of a massive industrial park, when I smell the familiar aroma of freshly shorn wood chips. A couple window glances betray my destination – a floor-level workshop where three Williams College grads are hand-building custom skis.
A quick phone call and one of the founders, Mark Wallace, greets me outside, right behind the office mascot, a lovable lab named Mason. Wallace is covered in sawdust. So is Mason. I've found the right place.
What began in a forlorn funeral parlor in Cambridge – hence the name (and discussed further in the video below) – has grown to a sizable and successful outfit on the William F. McClellan Highway, cranking out custom skis for expectant buyers and a couple corporate clients alike, including Narragansett Beer. The founders, Pete Endres, Jason Epstein and Wallace, met at Williams College, where they continued the ski careers each had begun as children. Hand-building skis percolated as a part-time passion; now it's a business.
One of the first things you'll notice when you graduate to the second room of their shop is a giant, rectangular machine that looks like a mini car-crusher. It's got bungee cords lining both sides like manufactured ribs. This, you'll glean, is where the magic happens. It looks expensive.
The machine is the ski press, which the fellas came across free of charge through channels I'd encourage you to inquire about should you ever pay them a visit. Essentially, it's what binds the many layers of fiberglass and bioresin to the skis' wood core.
The ski press in the foreground, with finished skis behind.
When I arrive, Endres is in the middle of this process, bedecked in a industrial respirator I'm later assured I'm perfectly fine without. He's focused, hunched over while applying gobs of what looks like glue to a surface more akin to a yoga mat than a pair of skis.
It's about this time when I comment that this whole custom skis thing seems a bit, well, highbrow. If I'm not a serious skier, this surely can't be for me, right?
Wallace is quick to put this silly journalist in his place.
"Everything we do is custom, and we can do that because of our setup here," he tells me. "But custom doesn't have to mean exclusive." About 30 percent of customers actually visit the shop in person. And they're not all expert skiers. At about $950 a pop, Parlor's skis fall somewhere in the middle of what you can expect to pay these days.
Related: Find the guys at this November's Ski & Snowboard Expo, or at a shop tour they'll be hosting late October.
The setup Wallace alluded to really is quite impressive, despite its unassuming facade outside. Woodworking machines are everywhere, spools of fiberglass hang from the ceiling, and another dog, Penny, quietly patrols the grounds with Mason, licking ankles and chewing on wood scraps as the guys go about their work. There's a beer fridge – which we exploited at the day's advanced hour – and vintage skiing posters hanging on the walls. By vintage, I mostly mean 80s-era ski bunnies. The place feels like some back country lodge – a space where business gets done but the apres-ski is taken just as seriously.
Here, raw materials can be turned into a final product in a matter of a couple weeks, with every detail thoughtfully chosen by the eventual owner, from the core material to the custom engraving on the side. (While I'm there, Wallace is making a pair for his mom.)
The shop, like their skis, is a blank canvas. To wit: At one point, Endres decides he needs another workspace; so he grabs a saw and cuts slots for two additional vices in the side of a central workbench. Problem solved.
After several hours hanging out in the space – some dedicated to researching this article, most largely shooting the shit – I'm walking back toward the Blue Line half talking myself into a pair of Parlor's skis.
I hit the slopes a couple times each year at best; but there's something about witnessing the process firsthand that makes the final product feel so much more alive.
