'We always had Thanksgiving dinner with a hundred people at our church hall,' Jeffrey said. Bilezikian, who grew up as part of a large extended family, was a principal organizer of expansive gatherings each year, including a summer picnic on the Cape. 18 in First Congregational Church in Yarmouth Port. A celebration of his life will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in First Armenian Church in Belmont. Bilezikian leaves another son, Gregory of Hyannisport, and six grandchildren.Ī funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Through the Armenian Missionary Association of America, for which he served as a board member, he helped fund humanitarian work that included a kindergarten, a community center, a dental clinic, and the renovation of a hospital. Bilezikian and his family launched the Bilezikian Family Foundation, which has supported everything from a residential program in South Plymouth for boys in crisis to a variety of projects in Armenia. 'He had that knack to make people overachieve.'Īfter selling the business, Mr. While the payroll grew to about 3,000 employees, 'he would take people out of stores and make them buyers, and would make buyers into managers,' Mullin said. Bilezikian rearranged his workers as deftly as his managers moved around merchandise. 'If you were the manager of Store A, you might put up a product up front, and the manager of Store B might put it in back.' 'Every store was at the discretion of the manager,' he added. Bilezikian traveled to China and elsewhere in search of products, and he refined his management approach, Mullin said. The Bilezikians moved into an apartment over the Yarmouth Port store and 'on Friday nights - because everything was so geared to the weekend - we would put the kids in pajamas, go downstairs, and stock the store,' Doreen said.Īs the business expanded to more locations on and off Cape Cod, Mr. The company's plural name was a nod to the three separate buildings that were part of the original business. Eventually, they went into bankruptcy.' Another owner ran the shops for a decade, she said, and then 'we came down for the July Fourth weekend with some friends in 1970, and he said, 'You want to buy a business?' ' 'They had Christmas music playing and wished everybody a Merry Christmas. The couple who founded the company only opened 'during July and August, but sold just Christmas merchandise,' Doreen told the Globe in 1996.

The Christmas Tree Shops had started out as a summer business in Yarmouth Port. He never said, 'I wish I was a car dealer or a nightclub owner or a lawyer.' ' 'He loved merchandise, understood it, and worked at it,' said their son Jeffrey of Watertown. He began working in retail, and he married Doreen Portnoy 52 years ago. Bilezikian graduated from Newton High School and went to Suffolk University.

His mother subsequently worked as a sales clerk in Waltham's Grover Cronin store. His father was a tailor who died when Mr. Bilezikian was one of two children born to Krikor Bilezikian and the former Beatrice Kasparian.

You can't put a value on that.'Ĭharles G. He would engage in conversations with his employees, and it wasn't just a thing to do. How are you? How's your son John? Is he still having problems with math?' When we had a few stores, he did it, and when we had a lot of stores, he did it,' Mullin said. 'He would walk over to an employee and say, 'Hi, Mary. Bilezikian, Mullin said, had a talent for remembering names and meaningful details about every employee, even when the chain expanded from its small beginnings to the 23 stores the family sold to Bed Bath & Beyond in 2003 for about $200 million. Mullin said his boss also staffed stores with the right mix of employees, with whom he shared more than a nodding acquaintance. Bilezikian had a practiced eye for filling shelves with stocking stuffers that proved irresistible in August.

Christmas tree shops