"I used to think I could run [the company] only up to $15 million," De Joria says. "When we got there, I realized the design was such that may taking John Paul Mitchell Systems to $50 million has been no problem. Now that we're approaching $100 million, I see us adding maybe five or six more people, mainly in the warehouse. The bigger we get, the more I delegate. The more I delegate, the less office bound I have to be. And the more fun I can have."
So . . . are we having fun yet?
"We are having so much fun," De Joria smiles, "that it's practically an indictable offense."
Indeed, compared with his somewhat reclusive partner, De Joria flies right up there in the jet stream. He owns a posh house in Beverly Hills, a penthouse in Manhattan, and would probably commute between them in his Porsche if they stopped setting speed traps in Kansas. When the snow's right, he likes to be in the Rockies or the Alps. When the surf's right, he takes off for one island or another. Los Angeles's better restaurants know him by sight, and if there's music in town, chances are he'll be dancing. A flag-waving patriot, De Joria also gives generously -- and quietly -- to such local charities as the Vietnam Veterans Food Drive.
His own traveling days mostly behind him now, Mitchell is finally getting around to building the house of his fantasies: a $2.9-million estate on the beach. When completed next year, the complex will include a main house, guest house, boat house, office/apartment annex, Japanese bath, solar-electric system, fruit and vegetable gardens, and a view of the Pacific that doesn't quit. Locally, he supports the antinuclear-power movement and the effort to stop Hawaiian food processors from irradiating native produce for export.
However great the personal wealth they ultimately accumulate, and whatever their company's influence on the hairdressing industry, it is their vision that separates Mitchell and De Joria from most get-rich-quick entrepreneurs. Forget, for a moment, the beach houses and sports cars. Come back instead to Paaulio, where Paradise is assuming unusual shapes.
More than 2,000 fruit-bearing trees adorn the farm -- most of them planted during Tennyson's first year of residency, when he and his family camped out in tents, the better to study local weather patterns and growing cycles. All are mulched in a sterilized growing medium and planted in circular beds, to reduce maintenance. Another recent addition is a 500-square-foot garden, which, after the Australian race, will be enclosed in a 70-foot domed green-house complete with fish ponds, an expanded kitchen area, and a company laboratory.
On one knoll sits John Paul's house, a glass-and-koa-wood hexagonal hut looking down on a private lake and papaya grove. Clustered around the main building are a pair of solar panels, an open-air kitchen, a "deluxe natural toilet," and a water-distillation tank. Parked out front: a souped-up, candy-apple-red, 48-volt solar-powered golf cart ("fastest damn golf cart in the world," says De Joria, who tends to pay attention to these things).
Mitchell's complex lies down slope. Like the other residences, it is faithful to an ancient Hawaiian principle of grouping discrete, open-air buildings designed for individual functions. It has its own separate kitchen, shower, and toilet facility. Across the path: a bright-yellow '69 Datsun pickup truck, its gasoline engine removed and discarded, power cords plugged into a solar-charging station.
"I call this one the Organic Zucchini," says Tennyson, of his all-electric, Suzukichassis, you've-never-seen-anything-like-it solar machine. "Nice, huh? The motor cost $300. The controller, $500. Batteries? Maybe $800. Maintenance runs probably 5% of a comparable gas-powered vehicle, and this one is pollution free. Only one moving part in the motor, too."
Responding to a visitor's curiosity, Tennyson climbs down and starts lecturing on economics. The average small farm, he explains, has dozens of machines -- trucks, tractors, Rototillers, lawn mowers, several water pumps, chain saws -- with thousands of moving parts. The more moving parts, the more complicated the habitat. Parts wear out and have to be fixed or replaced. The machines run on oil-based fuels, which pollute the environment. He has taken the same habitat, he says, and designed it "so you can count the number of moving parts on the fingers of two hands.
"And do the same amount of work," he continues. "With totally silent operation, low maintenance, and free fuel. When you start looking at the numbers, they become very attractive. People will tell you there's no hope left for the small farmer. Nonsense. If you design a farm so that it doesn't have to make money -- if you make self-sufficiency the primary goal, and let cash crops be a plus on top of that -- then you're pretty much home free."
The farm -- now operating on a breakeven basis, thanks to minimal fixed costs and a brisk trade in awapuhi -- has already inspired its partners to buy up two other parcels. If Tennyson's car succeeds in capturing the World Solar Challenge, however, the kind of numbers he's playing with could get a whole lot of scrutiny. And Mitchell, for one, believes it's a lock. "I can absolutely see that car crossing the finish line first," he insists. "There's no doubt in my mind we're going to win this race."
Don't dismiss that vision too quickly. A decade ago, when he first moved to Hawaii, one of Mitchell's few acquaintances was Swami Muktananda, an Eastern mystic. Because Mitchell was adept at doing hair, and because the swami was nobody's fool, the two struck up a relationship that was part personal, part professional. On odd mornings (and at the odder hour of 4:30), Mitchell would be summoned to trim Muktananda's locks. The swami repaid the favor by discoursing on metaphysics. Each knew his specialty well, and in time their understanding deepened.
One morning, as Mitchell tells it, they finished their session and went for a walk on the beach. Suddenly, Muktananda stopped and demanded all Mitchell's money. Producing a handful of bills from his pocket, he watched the old man wad them up and throw them into the Pacific.
"Money means nothing," said the swami enigmatically. "The sea will bring back all you need. Live in peace, my son. What's yours shall come to you."
This year, the sea brought Paul Mitchell and his partner about $12 million apiece -- and some sweet miles in the sunshine. Maybe what Muktananda meant was simply the wave of the future.
