Businessman James "Stew" Stewart wears many hats. The 63 year old grandfather of seven is well known for his eponymous barbershops around the Valley – at one point he owned eight - as well as for his current role as Temecula's Mayor and member of the Temecula City Council, on which he has served since 2016.
“I’m very content being a City Councilman and making my city the best I possibly can. This is the best place to be if you really want to impact your community because you can come up with ideas, implement them and actually see them go into effect. I’m an action oriented kind of guy and I’m very much a doer. Everything we do we get to see happen in almost real time,” he says.
Stewart, who was raised in Oswego, IL just outside Chicago, started a family and his first barbershop there, but dreams of living in California beckoned. He sold his barbershop and moved his wife and three kids to Temecula in 1991. “It couldn’t have been a better time to start a service business than when I got here. So many people were moving to the area that it made it a perfect industry to be in at that moment in time.” Stewart opened his first barbershop in Menifee, followed by seven more in Temecula, Murrieta, Ladera Ranch and Wildomar over the years. In 2022, he semi retired and turned his focus to politics full time. “I sold all the shops except the one on Rancho California in Temecula where I still work on weekends,” he says.
He is proud of the $133 million project the City is currently working on to add lanes and improve the 15 freeway and says that the City is also busy looking to bring new companies to the area. “We’re going out and looking to bring good employers to Temecula. Our Business Development team is very intentional in trying to attract those higher paying jobs here. And we’ve had a very good track record of doing that.”
Despite his profile in the city as businessman turned politician, a new group of residents and fans have discovered him via his popular Facebook page, Temecula Valley Fun Facts, which dishes up a thrice weekly dose of Temecula history to its 9000+ followers. “I started that when I was mayor in 2020,” Stewart says. “The lockdown had everybody stuck at home and I began looking at the Temecula Historical Society page and started my own page to try and get people to think about something other than Covid. I wanted to give people a chance to drive by these old buildings I was talking about – kind of like a little treasure hunt for the citizens of Temecula.” Stewart went from reposting fun facts about the city to creating his own posts, some of which have received hundreds of thousands of views. “I really loved learning about some of the early citizens who were barbers, some of the gun fights that took place in Old Town and the Hollywood connection – in the 1920s the Hollywood elite would come out here and enjoy a few of the local Speak Easies.”
Temecula's "unofficial historian" is hoping for one more term on City Council. “My whole goal is to keep Temecula Temecula,” he says about the city he has called home for 33 years. “More people come to Old Town than come to the wineries. Our Old Town is the Gaslamp district of Riverside County. Temecula has really come into its own…there are so many reasons why people come here.”