Stewart Surfboards founder Bill Stewart lives and breathes art.

You see it in the murals inside and outside the San Clemente surf shop he started in 1978 and the more than 40,000 boards he’s personally shaped.

Now, with a second generation helming the store on El Camino Real and broader business – which includes online, licensing, and wholesale – the goal is to safeguard the brand Stewart carefully crafted over the decades as they move it forward.

“(Bill) likes to call it turning the carburetor, where we’re taking this existing legendary brand and just tweaking it a little to modernize it, while keeping the artsy, funky, fun surfer vibe,” Bill’s daughter Ashley Stewart Leines said. “We did a whole remodel of the shop during COVID. We could have come in and just wiped the whole slate, made it look boutique-y, modern, clean white walls. That’s not the vibe of the brand.”

Ashley, who has a background in marketing, and her husband Erik Leines – a former pro-snowboarder who founded snowboard accessory brand Celtek and also worked at Stance and DC Shoes – bought the business from Bill, long regarded as the father of the modern longboard, in 2021.

Since then, they’ve boosted the shop’s private label offering bearing Bill’s art, launched used boards online, and boosted marketing efforts around preservation of the shop and Bill’s rich history.

“Our goal is just to keep getting the product right so that way people will keep staying super excited about the brand,” Erik said.

One-of-One Product

The bulk of that product is hardgoods, which accounts for just over 75% of the overall business. That includes new and used boards sold at both retail and wholesale. The remaining business is comprised of 20% from sales of apparel and accessories, both Stewart-branded and third-party labels, and 5% generated through licensing and distribution deals.

An underwater-themed mural, painted by Bill, connects the store’s apparel section and board room, which is typically stocked with more than 350 boards.

Board demand was so high during COVID that, at one point, stock dwindled to 17 boards. Staff produced about 80 boards per week during the peak, but still struggled to keep up with the demand surge.

“We’re really passionate about the fact that our stock boards don’t have stock,” Ashley said. “There’s no colorway. It’s awesome because it’s part of who we are, our DNA as a brand, but it can be difficult because each one of our boards is one of one. When you’re trying to sell a bunch of stuff online, they’re not widgets; we’re not making 20 of the same thing.”

Making the decision to place the used boards online was a big one that’s paid off.

On a recent day at the shop, Erik ticked off the different states Stewart was shipping used boards to: New York, South Carolina, and Alabama among many others.

Late May is when they began listing used boards in the Stewart online shop, prompting consignment sales for the month of June to surge 72% from the prior year. Consignment sales are up 15.5% so far this year with the company shipping boards all over the country and seeing more consumers coming into the store to inquire about something they saw online.

“The used board section has been a super strong category this year for us, whereas the regular hardgoods are slowing down a bit,” Erik said, citing broader macroeconomic trends.

The business recently took back the license for soft top surfboards, with Erik developing a new line called Hydro Cush. The first two Hydro Cush models are set to launch in late fall.

There’s also a new longboard called Bird, which was soft launched to the team and as custom orders. Stock boards of Bird, which Stewart team rider Tony Silvagni surfed in the recently ended US Open of Surfing, are expected to be available in the next few weeks. Separately, a mid-length board called Wild Bill has been tested in California, Hawaii, France, and Portugal with a launch set for early- to mid-September.

Both Bird and Wild Bill were shaped and designed by Bill.

In wetsuits and apparel, Stewart sells brands such as Xcel, Salty Crew, and Old Guys Rule. In June it brought in a board and apparel collaboration it did with Severson Originals.

But the bulk of the apparel assortment is Stewart private label, much of which touts Bill’s art, along with boardies, technical surf shirts, hats, and flannels.

The growing head-to-toe Stewart assortment has gained traction among wholesale partners in the past two years.

“They (retailers) are now seeing what we’re doing with the apparel and are super cued in on all these great new designs, so we see that as a great opportunity,” Erik said. “Not everybody can come in and buy a surfboard, but T-shirt sales are definitely really strong, especially in this retail environment when people’s wallets have tightened a bit.”

Stewart-branded product is distributed in around 50 active U.S. retailers. Finished Stewart boards are also shipped to South Korea, Canada, U.K., Israel, and Taiwan. Distributors in Japan and Peru receive Stewart shaped blanks that are then painted and glassed in-country.

The business also recently inked a new distribution deal for Europe with Sample N’Co, which imports U.S. boards and produces Stewart boards in a Stewart-approved Portuguese factory.

Stewart’s Past and Present

History, like the products themselves, is a big part of the Stewart DNA and store experience.

That includes a strong emphasis on customer service.

“Our customer retention is out of control,” Erik said. “It’s something that really blew my mind when getting involved with this business. Every single day people will walk down the stairs (to the board room) and say something like ‘I got a Stewart Hydro Hull 25 years ago.’”

The Hydro Hull was Stewart’s top-selling longboard for decades, with the Redline 11 based on that shape but with major modifications.

A successful event held last spring called “Coffee and Customs with Bill” let people book one-on-one time with Bill. The first 30-minute appointment was with a customer who brought his framed Stewart custom board order card in for Bill to sign. The order card, from 1989, had originally been filled out by Bill.

“It was a tearjerker,” Erik said.

“The value that guy placed on that card,” added Ashley, who said they may host the event again in the fall.

“My whole history was as an artist before I was a surfboard builder,” said Bill, who drove from Florida to the Encinitas community of Cardiff-by-the-Sea in 1971.

A year later he moved to San Clemente, all the while learning how to build boards from industry veterans for several years before striking out on his own.

In the beginning, there was little money for inventory. The store was set up with bleachers and a TV for people to hang out and watch surf movies. Bill described it as desperation trying to survive, but he slowly built up the inventory.

“That was the hard part for me – the business side of it,” said Bill, whose passions were to surf and create.

In fact, he jokingly calls his affliction “artistic compulsive disorder,” which has sent him down all sorts of paths experimenting with board designs.

Ashley’s trying to capture all of that, including through a new series called “Stewart Stories,” with the first launching in June. The series consists of framed photos and memorabilia on the store’s walls paired with a QR code directing people to videos of Bill telling the full story. The first details the four-man surfboard Bill created in the mid-’90s that was ridden during an exhibition at the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach.

“He has done so many incredible things over four decades and didn’t get that much publicity, or it did at the time, but now there’s a whole new generation of surfers that have no idea what he’s done. I’m just trying to tell his story,” Ashley said.

In 2021, Bill’s work – the culmination of all the shaping, designs, and passion for surfing – nabbed him an induction into the International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame. To date, the brand he built has produced more than 125,000 boards since its inception.

“I didn’t go to college. I did not care about any of that stuff,” Bill said. “I just wanted to ride waves until I couldn’t catch another wave and then I wanted to design boards that rode better. I was trying to always fix them.”

Kari Hamanaka can be reached at [email protected]. 

Take a Tour of Stewart Surfboards:

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  Stewart-branded apparel, in addition to pieces from a collaboration with Severson Originals. Photo by SES.

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  Private label has taken off as more pieces bearing Bill Stewart's art are released. Photo by SES.

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  Photo by SES.

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  Photo by SES.

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  Salty Crew at Stewart Surfboards. Photo by SES.

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  The sandal wall. Photo by SES.

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  The Redline 11. Photo by SES.