The Weider - Zuver's Gyms
IronOnline Memory Archive
The original Zuver's Gym was a large (maybe 30' X 100') rectangular building that Bob Zuver had built in the large backyard of his home on Hamilton Street in Costa Mesa. The area was zoned "commercial" only because it was with a hundred yards or so of Harbor Boulevard, a major North/South artery in Orange County that leads to Newport Beach, a couple of miles away. Everything in it was hand built by Bob: the dumbbells, the chin area, the odd but wild looking (and sometimes frighteningly dangerous - but thankfully few in number) machines, and the benches.
The front door was a foot-thick steel and stone contraption. Must have weighed at least a ton or so. A 30' gorilla stood out front on what had been the driveway. The benches were adorned underneath with cut-out and painted steel rhinos that had been welded on. Large movie-prop rocks sat in the corners. On the open-beam wood ceiling hung some of those coconut "heads" that have faces on them that make them look like pirate's heads. Right in the line of sight when you were laying on the benches. Very strange. My training partner Dave made jokes about them constantly - and usually in the middle of my toughest sets. We still laugh about that.
Little active maintenance was done by Bob or his employees, so the place was, to be kind, filthy. For example, on the floor where for years massive guys did pullovers and banged huge weights on the floor at the bottom of the reps, the carpet (?) was long gone and the concrete floor was depressed by three or four inches - exposing the aggregate rock in the concrete mixture. A jackhammer couldn't have done a better job. Concrete dust sprayed out to the sides for a foot or so around these craters. Same thing around the benches, where plates were thrown on the floor. Before being ground in with the rest of the dirt and dust, white lifter's chalk lay heavily strewn about on the floor around the benches, squat rack, and deadlift platform, as well as on all of the oly bars and larger dumbbells.
As with Dave's Dungeon at Gold's, the place had one purpose only: training to get huge. Cardio was unheard of - a foreign word. It was very much a "guy's" place. All function leading to but one end. Who cared about a little dirt? It worked, as I've never seen so many big guys in one place. As Gold's became the Mecca for bodybuilding on the west coast in the 70's, Zuver's was to powerlifting. When I first joined, five members held world records. Bill Kazmaier and other heavyweights visited. Lots of very large, very thick guys dressed in everything from cutoffs and tees or tanktops to overalls. In fact, shirts and shoes were kind of "optional." Definitely no fancy gym clothes. No lycra within miles. As with Bill's African gym, guys sometimes brought their dogs along. Quite amazing when compared to today's commercialized gyms.
However, by the late 70's the winds of change were upon us. Arnold had brought bodybuilding to the world. There was money to be made in bodybuilding. Possibly even big money. So, around late 1978, Bob closed the backyard gym and opened up a shiny new one a couple of miles closer to the beach on 19th Street in Costa Mesa. The place was to have been a "showcase" for further expansion. A "model" for future investors. Only this gym was geared to bodybuilding, not powerlifting. Gone was the deadlift platform. All the equipment was new or freshly painted. Mirrors lined all the walls. Women (gasp!) joined and trained hard after seeing what Rachel McLish had done and Cory Everson was doing. No more throwing stuff on the floor, and no chalk allowed. ;-( Real workout clothes and shoes required. A similar gleaming facility (with a separate "aerobics" area!) was opened in the affluent and fast-growing south OC location of El Toro. Bob began to gear up to make equipment in a nearby manufacturing facility.
Ostensibly, the whole thing from there was supposed to be a springboard for a proposed expansion with Joe Weider to be called "Weider/Zuver's Gyms." Always on the lookout for a buck to be made in the bodybuilding world, Joe was of course quick to notice the success of Gold's and World as they franchised their names around the world. At one point, World Gym tee shirts were the number two selling tee shirt in the world, behind only the Hard Rock Cafe megasellers. BIG bucks were being made. Joe apparently wanted some of this action, and wanted a gym with a track record and name (along with the gorilla and rhino stuff to market) to go with it. Bob saw an opportunity in terms of financial clout he otherwise lacked. The marriage seemed to have potential.
Although perhaps the thought or dream of owning a gym crosses every Musclehead's mind at some point in time, the actual reality of the business of operating a gym (much less a string of gyms) can be either lucrative or very cruel. It's no accident that most don't make it. Not surprisingly, in a year or so, and before really getting much past the starting gate, the whole merger/expansion/franchising thing fizzled and stalled. Something about a disagreement between the two main players.
By 1981, strapped by the expansion of the two showcase gyms, Bob sold all his equipment and closed the doors. The gym on 19th Street became a dry cleaner, then some kind of a graphic arts company. The one in El Toro became a real estate office. Sometimes, the best investments are those you don't make.
And, I still miss the old gym on Hamilton Street ... As Bill K. said, "it was all so simple then ..."
Bill
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