North Brentwood Hair Salons (4501 41st Avenue)

There were plenty of places where people could go to get the latest hairstyles. A few of those salons were located in the homes of Margaret Neville and Martha Holmes, along with other businesses located on 41st Avenue. In her white house at 4501 41st Avenue, Ms. Holmes started her hair business with her sister. Her shop was located on the top floor of the Holmes’s house, while her husband ran a business on the bottom floor. The Holmes sisters were known as the Holmes Hairdressers, who could provide anything from a simple press to the fanciest hairstyle in the area. “As young girls, we used to go to their shop on the main floor of the house and get our hair pressed on the weekends,” recalled Una Palmer. “[Stylist] Miss Gertrude knew how to press your hair and so did [fellow stylist] Miss Mary, but Miss Mary would burn the crap out of you.”

Located on the corner of 40th and Allison Streets, the RoPo Beauty Shop was opened in 1966 by Margaret Neville. Ms. Neville earned the nickname of the “Pull Lady” due to her more old-fashioned silk-press process and use of rollers that would be pulled out at the end of the press. Despite her dated technique, Ms. Neville’s presses gained fame for how silky straight they turned out when customers left the shop. Ms. Neville received similar praise for her curling techniques.

During the latter twentieth century, Ms. Martha Holmes decided to move her hair business to a shop located on 14th Street, Northwest in D.C. Fortunately for the Town of North Brentwood, the Holmes hair salon continued thanks to Martha’s sister staying behind to maintain business at the Holmes’s house. However, due to changes in the economy and population, people eventually moved out of North Brentwood and started going to other hair salons while salon owners in the town passed away, leaving their businesses behind.

Sources

Map of North Brentwood, Maryland by Don Cook. Derived from Minding Our Own Business: An Oral History of North Brentwood's Entrepreneurs (2004)