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Business & Tech

Sylvester Landscaping Celebrates 50th Year

Sylvester Landscaping celebrated it's 50th year in business Thursday. With much praise and admiration from his employees and customers, it's easy to see why John Sylvester has been able to maintain such lasting success.

Sylvester Landscaping has been caring for local properties since 1961. It started out as a family business and still remains one to this day.

John Sylvester was fresh out of high school when he enlisted in the Marines. He figured that he'd get his service out of the way and come back and get a job. He was an engineer and carpenter while in the Marines, but didn't like the carpentry too much.

He worked as a landscaper for his Swampscott High School hockey coach, then landed a job as a landscaper in Lynn. He was working for a friend of his brother-in-law's and the pay for a decent landscaper in 1959 was $1 per hour.

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Looking around at all of the businesses, John figured, "If these guys can have their own business, so can I."

In 1961, John joined a partnership with his brother and Sylvester Landscaping was born. His brother was a certified arborist out of UMass and handled the tree work while John took care of the actual landscaping.

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John's brother eventually went out on his own to concentrate on trees and according to John "this is where we are today."

It's a small, family run business with 22 properties. Although at one time, they cared for 85 properties. 18 of the 22 properties are on the Neck and 3 are on Peaches Point.

The Sylvester Landscaping crew consists of Marblehead resident John Sylvester, proprietor, his son Johnny (who is also a Portsmouth, NH firefighter), grandson Cam Rowe who is a student at Marblehead High School and nine-year veteran Pete Southwick from Peabody.

Johnny Sylvester speaks about working with his Dad with much adoration. "It's been a privilege to work for my Dad. A lot of people don't get work for their Dad after they have grown and moved along."

He added, "I also appreciate the work. It's almost not like work, it's so enjoyable. I'm very proud of my Dad and all of his achievements and the effort he puts in every day. I have a hard time keeping up with him."

Pete Southwick shares the same sentiments. "I've worked for many landscapers and now I know I've worked for the best."

Southwick says that he has learned a lot from Sylvester and how to keep properties well maintained. "From the right amount of water, to grass, to beds and fine tuning, it all makes the difference."

Cam Rowe also enjoys working with his grandfather. "I like spending time with him and I'm picking up a skill."

One of the properties that Sylvester takes pride in is the Carlson's with the giant row of hedges that Sylvester keeps neatly groomed in the shape of a whale.

Dick Carlson, owner of that whale, has been using Sylvester Landscaping for 25 years.

"John is an extremely hard worker. It's like the postman story, rain or shine, up bright and early in a yellow slicker or a t-shirt."

Carlson says that John treats his property with great care, as if it were his own. If a sprinkler needs adjusting or has a leak, John calls the sprinkler company. Carlson says that John works under his direction, but also works for the property itself.

Julie Rowe, John's daughter, also helps out with some of the properties by weeding and caring for certain beds of flowers.

"My dad is such and honest and hard worker and he is someone who does what he loves. It's why he still gets up and goes to work every day," Rowe said.

With grandson Cam making it a three generation business, it also rounds out the love for hockey on this crew. John was a captain of the 1957 Swampscott High School hockey team, Johnny was a member of the MHS hockey team and graduated in 1984 and Cam is a current member of the MHS State Championship team.

When asked if they talk about hockey a lot, John said "when it gets closer to winter."

Marblehead Patch would like to say happy 50th anniversary to Sylvester Landscaping!

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