The Sailor and the Dock
A sustainable approach to development drops anchor in the West Village
Words by Maggie Murdock Nichols / Photos by Rachel Maucieri
A new collective of local businesses recently dropped anchor in a 14,000-square-foot warehouse in the West Village district. The diverse occupants (a pasta maker, a bookstore, a coffee shop, etc.) are connected by their dedication to sustainability and community, values that the building’s owner, Hamid Pezeshkian, can trace all the way back to his childhood in Iran.
Hamid remembers his grandmother wrapping warm pots of food in towels to take to the park. “We’d stay all day, eating and relaxing,” he says. “My brother and I would climb trees, explore.” He remembers his grandparents’ garden as a candy store where had his pick of whatever the season had to offer. “They had one of what felt like everything — a cherry tree, persimmon, pomegranate, and citrus.”
When he was 12, Hamid and his family immigrated to Edmond, Oklahoma, for his mother’s work as a professor. Oklahoma has had a hold on him ever since. He studied entrepreneurship and finance at The University of Oklahoma, then received his master’s in real estate from Cornell University. He had all the makings of a mogul, but while plotting a new housing development in California, he asked a fateful question. Standing at the base of California hills with wildlife abounding, he asked his boss, “Where will they go?” His boss gestured farther up, beyond the hill. Hamid wasn’t sure of his next step, but knew he couldn’t move forward as if he hadn’t beheld all that would be lost. “I knew there had to be another way,” he says.
Hamid quit his job and lived simply; a month-long trip turned into a year. Along the way, he gathered ideas and imagined how real estate, nature, and health could coexist. He continued his travels, then became a real estate professor for California State University.
Thinking of the fruit trees he missed in Iran, Hamid and his brother Pouria purchased an orchard in need of rehabilitation just outside San Diego. Hamid worked on the orchard and made it sustainable. He would work in the dirt full-time if he could. Today they grow navel and valencia oranges, avocados, passion fruit, and key limes.
As he worked the land, Hamid wondered if he could be remade — if his skills for investment, real estate, and teaching could be repurposed for good. Back in Oklahoma, he stumbled upon a 14,000-square-foot warehouse, just waiting to be reimagined.
The shops in Sailor and the Dock are separated by walls made out of recycled sails and repurposed wood. They all open into a central space that holds an improbable artifact. “This boat once sailed Lake Hefner and was headed for the landfill,” Hamid says of the rescued sailboat that is home to The Dock Bar. The bar’s drinks, which included crafted mocktails as well as wine and beer, incorporate fruit from Hamid’s orchard along with locally grown produce.
Hamid envisions the Sailor and the Dock as a place where the weary can come for a break, sustenance, and renewal. He sees the space as a product of his diverse experience, a way to develop without leaving his core values behind.
Sailor and the Dock, 617 W. Sheridan Ave., (405) 237-5984, sailorandthedock.com
