Talk About a Close Shave: Goldman Barber Moves In-House

Goldman Sachs is taking haircuts. It’s not on the credit-default swaps of A.I.G. or any other investment, however. The Wall Street firm is bringing its favorite barber in-house.

Salvatore Anzalone has been trimming the tresses of Goldman employees for nearly two decades, including those of the last two Goldman chief executives — Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Lloyd C. Blankfein, the current head of the bank.

He first attracted a Goldman following at Salvatore’s Barber Shop, in the basement of the building in Lower Manhattan that until recently housed the firm’s huge trading floor.

Last year, Goldman’s employees moved into new state-of-the-art headquarters in Battery Park City, a little more than a mile away from the bank’s old home.

Mr. Anzalone followed his loyal clients, opening a location in July in a Goldman-owned hotel adjacent to the firm. But the hotel, an Embassy Suites, closed last week for renovations, leading Mr. Anzalone to shutter his shop.

Faced with the prospect of going without Mr. Anzalone’s old-school haircuts, which include straight-razor neck shaves and witch hazel-dabbed towels, Goldman came to Mr. Anzalone with an offer: he could save his shop by moving it into Goldman’s headquarters until the hotel makeover was completed.

So next week, he is moving to a new outpost inside the Goldman building. The firm is setting up a small barber shop on the mezzanine level, with two chairs.

Mr. Anzalone is not the first haircutter to become close to a financial heavyweight.

Warren E. Buffett’s relationship with his barber, Stan Docekal, has led Buffett devotees to visit Mr. Docekal’s shop in Omaha in search of investment tips.

John J. Mack, the former chief executive of Morgan Stanley, was said to be so attached to his longtime barber, Salvatore Macri, that when Mr. Mack left Morgan Stanley in 2001 to run Credit Suisse, he began shuttling Mr. Macri downtown to his new offices for discreet trims.

On Thursday, Mr. Anzalone, a native Sicilian with a high-pitched laugh and a habit of gesticulating with his free hand, was trimming sideburns in a rolled-up dress shirt and a yellow tie speckled with bits of hair. It was his last week at his soon-to-be-closed location, which charges $28 for a basic haircut. (No word on whether Mr. Paulson and Mr. Blankfein, both follicly challenged, received discounts.)

Mr. Anzalone seems to have learned from his customers at Goldman, whose business principles demand discretion in dealings with clients. When a reporter said he was writing an article, Mr. Anzalone declined to discuss his Goldman clients and his move to the firm’s building.

Known as Sal, Mr. Anzalone began his career in 1974 at Nino’s, a popular barber shop near Wall Street.

In 1994, he struck out on his own and opened Salvatore’s.

The threat to Mr. Anzalone’s new shop emerged last year, when Goldman announced it would renovate the Embassy Suites hotel, which it had bought in 2006 with plans to turn it into a hotel for the bank’s executives visiting New York.

Goldman has closed the Embassy Suites for a yearlong refurbishment in part to assuage its executives who had grumbled about the accommodations.

In the meantime, Mr. Anzalone has moved around the corner and into Goldman’s new 43-story steel-and-glass tower, which already includes such comforts as a 54,000-square-foot gym.

And like much of what the firm does, the deal with Mr. Anzalone has in at least one respect an air of exclusivity. Only customers from Goldman are allowed.