Liz Schofield
Tress Mistress of Atlantis Salon
By Kathleen Downey
When Liz Schofield laughs, it is with full abandon. She has the type of laugh that rises from her core and emanates from every fiber of her body, reverberating on sound waves to knock over anyone nearby.—Only a slight exaggeration.—I’ve sat in the chair of the hair stylist-proprietor of Atlantis Salon, so I’ve experienced her laughter up close. Whether telling jokes or funny personal stories that I can’t write about, Schofield embraces humor as a life philosophy. Instead of reciting inspirational lines from a divine text, she laughs from her heart—a lot.
I caught up with Schofield at the Thirsty Whale, where she took time from her Caesar salad to “dish” about Newburyport and a little bit about herself. Schofield was a hair stylist ingénue when she purchased Atlantis, where she’d been working for three years, from the previous owner in 1986. Only in her twenties at the time, the purchase was a bold and potentially risky venture. But, says Schofield, “I’ve always been a risk taker. I essentially bought the shop in order to keep my job.” In the years since, Schofield has cultivated a loyal clientele who come in not just for their cuts, colors, and coifs, but also for the mildly barbed (yet good-natured) wit she dispenses as fluidly as she wields her cutting shears.
Prior to the salon’s Liberty Street location, Atlantis occupied the space where Starbucks sits today. Schofield recalls one Yankee Homecoming when she hired a belly dancer to perform on the busy corner, hoping to lure in passersby. But the gimmick ruffled the feathers of some in the city’s business community, who felt that sidewalk gyrations in the midst of sidewalk sales were out of place and politely requested that Schofield move her dancer indoors. “I did,” Schofield tells me, with a mischievous sparkle in her blues eyes, “I put her in the storefront window.”
She remembers the Yankee Homecomings of the late 1970s as “wild and crazy,” and recalls a summer night when New Riders of the Purple Sage played at the Grog. One of the band members had stepped into Atlantis for a haircut and sweet-talked Schofield into a date. But it’s a date that she didn’t keep, Schofield tells me— with more mirth, than regret, in her voice.
Her first Yankee Homecoming may be her most special. “I was a little girl when my father took me to the Yankee Homecoming parade. I was so excited.” Schofield pauses, bringing the memory into sharper focus. “A horse named Hiram pulled a wagon at the start of the parade. I thought he was great.” In fact, Hiram may be responsible for Schofield’s present-day equestrian passion.
Schofield practices dressage, a precise training discipline that highlights a horse’s innate athleticism. As she explains to me the subtle physical movements of a skilled rider and the horse’s ability—and willingness—to respond to these cues, I sense that, for Schofield, this discipline is foremost about the bond forged between rider and horse. Then she tells me about her good friend Teos, with whom she honed her dressage expertise. “He was a funny, smart, wonderful horse who could be a little naughty at times,” Schofield says. Teos passed away last fall at age 25. Schofield still misses her friend.
A new but much tinier friend in Schofield’s life is Yum Yum, a precocious pug puppy. “She’s spoiled, and I love her,” Schofield says. A cat named Trouble brings . . . a bit of trouble, I suppose, to Schofield’s life. It occurs to me—from those personal stories Schofield tells me that I can’t write about, that Schofield is a bit of a friendly troublemaker herself. She has only wonderful words for her mother, Lois, however. “She’s a great mother and is a lot of fun,” Schofield says. And though it’s not a downtown family dynasty, Schofield’s sister Dawn is just around the corner; she owns Body Sense.
But if you find yourself outside of Schofield’s salon on Liberty Street, and feel a reverberation through the brick sidewalk, relax: it’s just Schofield—laughing, having a good time.
