Bohemia framer puts immigrants in picture

Fotios Sapsis was 30 and waiting tables in a Rockville Centre restaurant when his younger brother suggested he change "careers." At the time, he didn't think brother knew best, but things change, and so do minds.

Sapsis, who is now 66 and a resident of Island Park, didn't take to the idea of being an entrepreneur that day in 1975, but his brother's nudging and persistence proved right.

Now Sapsis, who has come a long way -- geographically and professionally -- from meager beginnings, owns a successful framing business in Bohemia. He is grateful for his success and makes it a point to share it with other immigrants by hiring them to work in his shop. Most of his employees are Hispanic, including three couples, and have worked with him for more than a decade.

Sapsis was born in 1945 on the Greek island of Lemnos, the eldest of five children of a poor farming family. With only six years of schooling, he left his village at age 14 to help support them. He found work in a town doing chores for a restaurant.

"I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning and made 20 to 30 trips walking uphill to fetch water," he recalled. "Then I went to the shore to get fresh fish from boats. Fish was always on the menu, and I was always cleaning big and small fish."

He served coffee, too, and in the summer made ice cream. His day usually ended at 11 p.m. or midnight, and there were no days off.

After a year Sapsis yearned to leave his homeland.

"Greece was in a difficult situation," he said. "There were no jobs. I had no education. I had nothing. I told my parents, 'I'm not staying here all my life!' "

Lucky in disasterThrough sheer pluck, and with help from an aunt who was a maid to the owner of the former Greek Line, Sapsis went to Genoa, Italy, and was taken aboard the cruise ship TSMS Lakonia by the captain. The 17-year-old was put to work scrubbing decks but was quickly promoted, first to waiter for the crew and then to captain's steward. Things were going well until disaster struck.

Near midnight on Dec. 22, 1963, during a Christmas cruise to the Canary Islands, a fast-spreading fire broke out in the ship's beauty parlor. There were 646 passengers and 376 crewmen on board.

"I was asleep in my cabin on the bottom deck," Sapsis recalled. "All of a sudden I couldn't breathe. I went up about five decks; there was thick, smelly smoke. People were screaming, crying."

He said he helped panicked passengers get into lifeboats and was among the last to leave the ship. Ninety-five passengers and 33 crew members died.

"I feel lucky that I made it," Sapsis said. "It was an experience for life."

He went on to serve in the Greek army and worked on more Greek Line cruise ships, but Sapsis had other dreams.

When the Queen Anna Maria docked in New York in 1972, Sapsis, then 27, jumped ship. Friends found him jobs in Greek restaurants. The one where he met his future wife, Laura, closed after he was there a year.

"I found myself out of work, out of house, and I was illegal," said Sapsis, who became a U.S. citizen in 1980. Other restaurant jobs followed before his life took the turn his brother hoped for.

Brother in the pictureFrom tips and earnings during his years at sea, Sapsis had helped Panagiotis, who is four years younger, obtain a college education, sponsoring him while he completed his master's degree in the United States. Then one day his brother asked him: "What are you going to do? You don't want to be a waiter the rest of your life."

Sapsis said he replied, "I don't know what to do." But his brother did -- he suggested they start a picture framing business.

While studying in Greece, Panagiotis Sapsis had worked with a framer "and learned a lot of stuff," Sapsis said. He offered to teach his older brother after he arrived here. "We got into a lot of disagreements," said Sapsis, "he was pushing me so much. I lived a different life altogether. But he felt without me he wouldn't be what he was. He felt he owed me."

Sapsis relented, and the brothers set up shop in 1975 in Sapsis' mother-in-law's garage in Island Park. They called the business Parthenon Framing Enterprises. To drum up business, Sapsis took frames to house parties in the Greek-American community in Astoria, Queens, and became known as "Foti with the frames."

By 1976, Sapsis had rented a store in Oceanside and trained his staff, almost all of whom are Hispanic immigrants. Today, Parthenon is considered one of the foremost custom framing businesses in New York State.

It created 2,000 frames for two floors in one of the former World Trade Center towers. "For that I'm really proud," said Sapsis, who oversees quality control and conducts transactions with customers.

The company makes frames for art galleries, large companies, hospitals and artists. Parthenon employs 20 workers at a 10,000-square-foot plant in Bohemia and has a reputation in the industry for quality work and a generous owner, according to employees and clients.

"We have been dealing with him for close to 30 years," said Lars Larsson, co-owner of the Chisholm Larsson Gallery in Manhattan. "His work is excellent, first-class."

Lou DeCaro, a Wading River artist with Parkinson's disease, said Sapsis was the only one who would frame 15 paintings for a fundraiser. And he did it for free, surprising DeCaro and helping raise $10,000 for the battle against the disease.

"I wept," DeCaro said. "I never expected anyone to be so generous and thoughtful."

To his staff, Sapsis is more than a boss. "We feel like a family," said Jose Benitez, 47, who is from El Salvador and joined Parthenon 21 years ago.

"There isn't anybody like him," said Kenneth Baiko, 47, of Oakdale, a veteran framer who supervises the business. "He's got a heart of gold. He's not your typical, average guy."

Sapsis thanks his brother, who lit the spark but has no role in the business.

"I helped him, and he paid me back."

Getting framed

Parthenon

Framing Enterprises

140-4 Keyland Court

Bohemia

631-563-9858

parthenonframing@aol.com