Lewis Graves*

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Lewis Graves was a kid growing up in Miami Beach, Florida when he met future business partner Bruce Walker (East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, Class of 2002). The two, along with Ted James (East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame, Class of 2008), opened Fox Surf Shop in South Beach in 1972. 

As luck would have it, they opened their doors just as the surf craze hit Brazil, and the closest place Brazilians could buy a board was Miami. The freshly hooked South American surfers landed at Miami International Airport and took a cab straight to Fox, where they bought boards in bulk. The Fox team stepped up their services to meet the growing demands of their new clientele.

Over the next couple years, Graves and Walker spent all their free time at Sebastian Inlet. The draw to move to a place with consistent waves was strong, and the two decided to hand the management of Fox South Beach over to Joe Cole and open up a new Fox Surfboards in Melbourne Beach. Behind the retail shop was a 1,500 square-foot industrial building, which they turned into a humming surfboard factory. 

Ted James eventually left the partnership to concentrate on his Fox Surfboards business in West Palm Beach, Florida and Cape Hatteras, NC, taking the Fox name with him.  Graves and Walker rebranded their shops as Ocean Avenue Surfboards and Walker Skateboards for both Melbourne Beach and South Beach, Miami locations.  Later, they sold the South Beach shop to Rick Hill, who renamed it Ocean Drive Surf Shop.

They mentored the likes of Grayson, Jeff Klugel, Matt Kechele and Greg Loehr, forming the best lineup since the days of the Surfboards Hawai’i team in the 1960s. The team dominated nearly every event they entered for more than a decade. Graves was also responsible for changing the nature of surfing contracts. He advocated for his riders to receive financial compensation for magazine appearances and gear contracts — and he never took a dime in commission.

Following a fire at the Melbourne Beach factory, Walker bought an old Natural Art Surfboards factory, and the long-time business partners decided to go their separate ways. Walker took his skate business and the surfboard factory, while Graves kept the retail shops. It wasn’t long before Graves was bitten by the surf bug yet again, selling the businesses and moving with his wife and two young sons to Puerto Rico, where he became a surf industry sales rep.  

Graves passed way before his time, but the nature of the team that he and Walker built remains influential in the surfing world. They nurtured their athletes and presented them with professional opportunities that went far beyond events and competitions. Today, Graves’ sons, Josie and Dylan, both incredibly talented pros themselves, carry on their dad’s surfing legacy as fixtures on the Puerto Rican and global surfing scenes.

Photos by Tom Dugan, Phil Roberts, and Bruce Walker.