Clark Trim enjoys a good meal, and with it, fine wine.
It has been his life's quest to establish himself as a master of both.
For the last 25 years, Trim has owned Colonial Wine & Spirits in west Little Rock, one of the state's largest-grossing liquor stores. But before that, he was kicking around central Europe, picking up culinary degrees along the way.
While keeping an eye on Colonial's competition in the fine wine market -- which will soon include grocery stores -- he uses his time and resources to benefit several arts-related nonprofits. He's on the board of the Thea Foundation, on the advisory council of the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College's Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institute and is a former board member of the Arkansas Humanities Council.
"Food and wine is definitely an art, so art of every genre is very close to my heart, whether it be performing arts, art on canvas, theater, poetry," he says.
Trim says the store gets three to four calls per week from worthy causes asking for product for parties, a donation or both. "We try to do as much as we can, and we would like to support every one of them," he says. More often than not he obliges, whether it's a gift basket for a silent auction, wine for a function or a major sponsorship.
Paul Leopoulos, who established the Thea Foundation in the name of his late daughter, Thea Kay, says Trim shares his passion for the organization and describes Trim as "a very soft person who cares about good things." The foundation helps spread awareness about how the arts affect students in a positive way.
Trim and his husband and business partner Henrik Thostrup live in a gated estate in the middle of Little Rock, where Trim has used his talents as a master gardener to create roughly 4.7 acres of lush and aesthetically pleasing grounds and gardens. Their home is decidedly eclectic, with local art mixed with pieces they've collected during their world travels.
Trim says the place was in "ruin" when they bought it seven years ago. They commuted from their lake house on Lake Norrell during the renovation. Those who've been lucky enough to attend a fundraiser or social get-together at their place know to expect the best from this pair of hospitality experts.
Trim is stout in stature and speaks in a low voice. In a choir, he'd be a bass. His large, heavy-frame glasses portray the serious businessman within, an observation echoed by Leopoulus.
"He's very formal," Leopoulus says. "He's very quiet. He's very precise and proper when he speaks to you. Sometimes people will look at that as being standoffish, but that's the last thing he is."
Growing up in a family of 10 children, Trim didn't have much time for foolishness. After graduating from high school in Foreman, he took a stab at college but ended up in the Army. He served two years stateside and two in Germany, where he worked mostly with radar and guided-missile systems.
"It was very interesting and somewhat rewarding work but very impersonal and cold," Trim says. However, it served as a springboard for the work he does now.
Trim had decided when he joined the Army that he wouldn't spend his down- time with soldiers in the barracks. He got out and immersed himself in the German culture.
"Coming from a poor family in a small town in rural Arkansas, I didn't really know there was much more that could go with dinner than iced tea or ice water," he says. He set out to learn all he could about wine and food, starting in the small, locally owned "gasthauses," or restaurants, in the medieval village where he was based. Trim talks longingly about how families there gathered at mealtime, either at one of the gasthauses or at home.
"It was very much a part of the culture for them to share what happened that day at the dinner table," he adds. Families taught their children about food pairings with alcohol -- mostly beer or wine -- and how to respect alcohol's effects. "It was just a part of the meal."
A TABLE FOR TWO
Stationed in centrally located Frankfurt, Germany, Trim could travel easily to wine-producing regions in other European countries, including France, Italy and Spain. Near the end of active duty and while working back in the States at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Trim worked after-hours in the officers' club, hoping to kickstart a career in hospitality management.
He soon graduated from an armed forces culinary institute, where the stewards for Air Force One were trained. Trim says he learned a lot about protocol and about types of services, such as setting a table in the English, Russian and French styles, plus all the variations in between.
He followed with an Advanced Hospitality Management Certification from the University of Houston's Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management and a Certification in Culinary Masterpieces from a culinary institute in the Netherlands.
"Everything we produced was a masterpiece," he says of the boot-camp-style training he received in the Netherlands. Trim lived and worked in Germany from 1985 to 1992. He was never a chef, but instead worked in executive management. Still, the skills came in handy.
"You need to know every job there is to know," Trim says. "Today, if I were to be the general manager of a country club or hotel ... if the chef said, 'I'm having a bad day. I'm out of here. I don't care what you do,' I have the classical training to step right in and take over the kitchen.
"I've done it more than once."
Trim and Thostrup, who is Danish, met while Thostrup was working as an executive chef at Sondrestrom Air Base in Greenland. Trim, then out of the Army, ran two clubs and a liquor store at the base.
"That was 33 years ago and we've been together ever since," Trim says.
Trim says he resisted his sexual orientation at first.
"I didn't want to be [gay]. I didn't understand the feelings I was having or where they were coming from. I tried so hard to be 'normal.'"
He never mentioned this to anyone -- "not one single time," he says -- throughout high school or in the Army.
He says he fought his feelings to the point that he married and became a father. The marriage didn't last, but he remains close to his daughter, Carrie Trim Hazel, her husband, Glenn Hazel, and their preschool son, Colton, who live in Wilmington, Del. Trim gets video clips from his grandson almost daily.
BESTING THE BEST
It was his family in Foreman that brought him back to Arkansas on New Year's Day in 1992. His parents were aging and needed help. In Little Rock, Trim quickly found a niche that would keep him here.
"People were really beginning to become introduced to better wines, and all of that was kind of nicely nudged along by [President] Bill Clinton coming on the world scene," he says.
Back then there was only one Little Rock liquor store that was offering "better" wines: Popatop Wine, Spirits and Beer on South University Avenue. "They were the store in town," Trim says.
To meet the competition head-on, Trim bought the former Colonial Bottle Shop at Alamo Drive and Markham Street in Little Rock (the store moved about half a mile east on Markham to its current location in 2007) and upped the ante on the quality of wines. The store has operated under the Colonial name since the 1950s. The original store consisted of about 1,800 square feet. In 1995, they added another 1,200 square feet to that store, all of which was dedicated to extending the store's wine selection.
Stan Hastings, chief executive officer of Central and Moon Distributors -- which sell product wholesale to Colonial -- remembers Trim and Thostrup's early years.
"They worked 15 hours a day for years to build that business, then all of a sudden they burst onto the scene, and everybody realized what they had going on," Hastings says.
"Clark and Henrik started offering a higher level of service that wasn't seen in Little Rock at that time," he continues. The pair also taught their staff -- or sent them off to be trained -- about finer wines and spirits.
"They were the first store in central Arkansas for sure that had trained, knowledgeable staff in wine," Hastings says.
Everyone at the store, including Trim and Thostrup, treat all customers the same regardless of what they drive or how they're dressed, Hastings adds. The two also started hosting events for their customers "and it personalized that relationship beyond just the customer/retailer."
Colonial's business "exploded" just a few years before it moved locations. They simply needed more room -- and quick.
"It was a huge step for us to take," Trim says. "It was frightening. I had a few sleepless nights over it. But it was the right decision to make."
The business went from $800,000 in revenue its first year to more than $13 million last year. Trim is president of the corporation that owns the store, and Thostrup is general manager while still working privately as an executive chef.
The store has a tasting bar, produces its own magazine and offers party planning and pairing advice through its website, colonialwineshop.com.
"People think you get a [liquor] license, you hang it on the wall and the money just starts rolling in," Trim says. "I tell them it's taken us 25 years to become an overnight success. It's not easy. You have to keep working at it all the time."
GARDENING OR ARCHAEOLOGY?
In 2003, Trim became a member of the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service's Master Gardener program, which requires a combination of horticulture training and volunteer service to public gardening projects. He also served on the board of the Arkansas Flower and Garden Show for six years and continues to volunteer for the board.
"When he commits to something, he does it wholeheartedly and with a smile," says Janet Carson, the extension service's horticulture specialist and the state coordinator for the Master Gardener program. "He doesn't get flustered. He just takes everything in stride. He's just the consummate professional."
At home, Trim enjoys planting and harvesting and even likes to pull weeds.
You're more likely to find him at a board table than behind a lawn mower, however. Trim's experience in the private sector made him a valuable board member for the Arkansas Humanities Council, says Paul Austin, its executive director.
"He not only brought a commitment to the importance of the humanities to Arkansans but also brought his business background that helped us meet our fiduciary responsibilities," Austin says. "Plus, he's just incredibly generous of his time and talents," which included feeding the board at his home.
Austin says Trim was particularly committed to grants for small organizations around the state that did their own humanities programming. Trim is proud that his six-year term on the council -- the maximum allowed -- started as a governor's appointee.
"The humanities in Arkansas are rich because of the background of us being a Southern state, the history of Central High School, the history of the Japanese internment camps and the Civil War," Trim says. "So many important battles took place here in the state."
The humanities have been described as the study of how people process and document the human experience using philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language. Trim has the desire and capability to take it all in, ascertain needs and contribute where possible.
And he knows how to pick a great bottle of wine.
SELF PORTRAIT
Clark Trim
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Aug. 11, 1954, Hobbs, N.M.
FAMILY: husband Henrik, daughter Carrie Trim Hazel, son-in-law Glenn Hazel and grandson Colton
FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATION: anywhere I haven’t been before
MY FAVORITE DISH THAT HENRIK MAKES: fresh-caught Gulf grouper
I LIKE TO COOK Mexican food — green enchiladas.
WHEN I DRINK, IT’S white wine. My favorite varietal is viognier.
MY ART COLLECTION COULD BEST BE DESCRIBED AS classic to abstract.
MY FAVORITE PLACE IN MY HOUSE IS the great room, looking back toward the gardens.
I BECAME A MASTER GARDENER BECAUSE I love plants. I can’t throw a plant away.
WHEN WE ENTERTAIN, Henrik takes care of the shopping, preparation and display of the food, and I take care of the gardens and the house.
I KNEW I’D MADE IT WHEN we became Bell Wine Cellars’ No. 1 retailer globally.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: driven
High Profile on 05/28/2017