Robert Douglas, who founded the black dog in the vineyard of Martha and transformed the Labrador Retriever mixture tavern into an international summer emblem, died on Wednesday at his family’s family home. He was 93 years old.
Jamie Douglas’ son said the cause was prostate cancer.
Robert Douglas moved to the Vineyard of Martha in 1960 after grew up in the summers on the island of Massachusetts with his family, in love with his marine culture – and hoping that it would eventually be the one who was waving goodbye to the summer visitors.
Mr. Douglas spent his early years on the island designing a Topsail scooter named The Shenandoah, which is still an accessory on the waterfront of Vineyard Haven. But he later turned his attention to building a restaurant, which would be good and reliable on the head of the port, a place that people could gather throughout the year and get a cup of real chowder of New England.
The mixture of Labrador-Boxer, Black Dog, named after a pirate in the novel Robert Louis Stevenson “Treasure Island”, would be his mascot.
The Black Dog Tavern opened New Year’s Eve in 1971 and the initial profile of Black Dog, pulled by Stephanie Phalen, will be integrated into the operation in 1976, according to Gazette Gizty.
In the early 1980s, the portrait of Black Dog was added to the clothing-clouts, thick t-shirts, stone hats, mugs and biscuits, sealed with black dogs on the front and the year of purchase at the back. The items became instant collectibles for visitors who wanted to get a part of their summer home with them.
“The tail began to shake the dog,” Mr Douglas told The Vineyard Gazette in 1997. “He started as a restaurant and turned into a dry goods business.”
Robert Stuart Douglas was born on March 18, 1932, in Chicago to Grace Farwell Douglas and James H. Douglas Jr. The couple started renting a house at the island’s West Chop section in 1947.
Mr Douglas’ father served as secretary of the Air Force and Deputy Minister of Defense under President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Mr. Douglas graduated from Northwestern University and recruited in the Air Force from 1956 to 1958. He was placed at the base of Hanscom Air Force in Bedford, Mass.
In the summer of 1960, he signed to sail as a companion on the ship’s two ships of the 19th century again as a sailor in a copy of HMS generosity, which was built for a remake “Mutiny on the Bounty” was knitted by New Scotland, through the Panama channel, throughout the Panama channel.
But he always wanted his own ship. Without any formal training as a marine architect, Mr. Douglas designed Shenandoah based on an original 1850 drawing and started the scooter at the port of Vineyard Haven in 1964.
Young people are “just big sponges, they can’t get enough,” he told The Vineyard Gazette in 2013. “Everything is new and interesting.
Alabama, another scooter, joined its fleet in 1967.
In 1970, he married Charlene Lapointe, a fellow sailor who survives Mr Douglas. His four sons – Robert Jr., Jamie, Morgan and Brooke – also survive him. All four sons had their hand in the family business at various points, including working in retail stores, ship governor and Black Dog Apparel management.
In the vineyard, Mr. Douglas or Captain Douglas, as he was known, defined his legacy with his commitment to maritime history. He decorated the tavern with nautical pieces of museum quality that he has collected over the years, including 17th and 18th centuries.
But it was the image of Mutt, a rescue, which became a phone card for the Martha vineyard and proof of participating in a summer club.
The correspondence operation in the late 1980s collapsed the business, with clothing pages sent to more than 200,000 customers. The company took a boost in 1991 at the Rolling Stone, when it ran a photo of three women in black black dog lids in the brand’s cool cement magazine.
Bill Clinton, a frequent visitor to the island during his presidency, was photographed with a black dog. The purchase of two t -shirts, a hat and a sundress from the black dog came under control during the challenge investigation.
The Black Dog, the lab-mix that started all, died in 1983, but Mr Douglas had other rescue dogs throughout his life, more recently by Jack Russell Terriers.
