More than half a century ago, shoppers lined the streets of downtown Augusta. They could pick up a new suit, grab a bite to eat, catch an afternoon movie and get their teeth cleaned or eyes checked.

"It was just packed all the time," said Dr. Thomas "Tom" Casella, the face of Casella Eye Center on Broad Street.

It was in that same time (1948) that his father, Victor, opened a storefront optometry office in the Lamar Building in the 700 block.

It was nothing unusual on a bustling main street filled with doctors' offices. Almost 60 years later, Casella Eye Center remains one of the few places along that same stretch, with Tom Casella - who joined in 1978 - now heading a homegrown practice catering to several generations of patients.

"I love Augusta," Dr. Casella said. "I didn't want to be anywhere else."

Ten years ago, he wasn't sure whether he would be able to pass along Casella Eye Center to one of his three children. Now, as the practice approaches another major milestone, he is remodeling his office in preparation for his 26-year-old son, Ben, who will join him next summer.

Don't count on his hanging up his lab coat just yet, though.

"Right now, I'm really looking forward to working with Ben," he said. "I'm only 56. What else would I do?"

Beginning of a business

With the smell of primer in the air, Tom Casella carefully examines Alice Hearst's eyes through a biomicroscope. Speaking softly, the Southern gentleman in him causes him to address her by her last name, asking her to read the letters on the computer screen in front of her.

It's patients such as Ms. Hearst - who has been coming to Casella Eye Center for 40 years - who have kept the Broad Street office open for 59 years.

"He was the first doctor to ever see my eyes, so I'd rather come back here," Ms. Hearst said.

Ms. Hearst brought her daughter, Tara, who brings her own daughter and other family members.

Dr. Casella doesn't use confusing jargon and isn't harsh, Tara said, and if you need him at the last minute, he'll see you.

"That's the kind of doctor you need," Alice Hearst said. "Someone who will look at you right away when you're not feeling well."

Many patients have grown up with Dr. Casella and his father, which can be an unusual thing these days.

"You're seeing it more to be a thing of the past, that's for sure," said John Whitlow, the president of the Georgia Optometric Association, of which Dr. Casella is the secretary. "It's very unique."

Victor Casella opened Casella Eye Center in 1948 after serving in World War II with the Army Air Corps as an optometrist, checking pilots' eyes. After the war ended and he returned to Augusta, he decided to open his own place.

He loved helping people with their vision and health and wanted to continue.

"Just to be independent and practice on my own," he said. "I didn't want to work for anyone else."

At the time, his three brothers also had businesses - Snappy's Hamburgers, Casella's Jewelers and Casella's Sandwich Shop - within a stone's throw of one another around the 700 block of Broad Street.

"This little area means a lot to this family," Tom Casella said.

Although his father put his life's work into his storefront office, the younger Dr. Casella said he never really had optometry on his mind. He helped during the summer but spent much of his time doing the usual kid's stuff - building tree forts and riding bikes, he said.

He was always a smart, easy-going guy, said Kevin Kearns, a friend since kindergarten at St. Mary on the Hill Catholic School.

In winter, he would head to Miami Beach (where his father and mother had married) and watch the Orange Bowl, where he saw Joe Namath and Bear Bryant.

He was a good kid, his father said, who focused on his grades and served as sports editor of the annual at Aquinas High School. "Once in a while, I'm sure he slipped out of a window at night," his father said jokingly.

By the time he was 17, Tom Casella was spending his summer wrapping coins in the basement vault at Georgia Railroad Bank (in the present-day Wachovia building on Broad Street), working with now local lawyer David Bell. Mr. Bell was home from The Citadel, Dr. Casella said, and the way he talked about it made Tom want to go.

"I had never thought about it," he said. "It was one of the best things I ever did."

Tom was accepted and knew he had to get into good shape. He spent months jogging around the reservoir behind Daniel Village with Mr. Kearns, a dedicated runner.

"If you showed up and you weren't in shape ... that wasn't the thing to do," Dr. Casella said.

It was then that he and his high school sweetheart, Carol, broke up. They had been set up on a blind date, but she said he called her one night and said he wanted to see other people. She is now his wife.

Being so young, the Edgefield, S.C., native said, "It probably wouldn't have worked out if we hadn't taken time apart."

Late that summer, in 1969, his parents drove him to Charleston, S.C., for his "knob year," or first year, at The Citadel.

"Back in those, days, you literally did not get to say goodbye to your parents," he said with a laugh. "You just walked in the gates, and they started yelling at you. You were standing there thinking, 'What was I thinking?'"

Finding focus

Tom Casella had been a good student at Aquinas, but it was at The Citadel that he learned real discipline.

His head shaved, he would get up by 6 a.m., sometimes earlier, to polish his brass and go to morning formation. His schedule was set for him, whether doing drills, eating meals, studying or attending class.

He liked the structure but struggled at first with his grades. When his first midterms came back, the grades weren't too hot. At The Citadel, knobs are paired with seniors, and Tom's helped him learn to focus and get his work done.

"I learned how to study," he said. "But if I'd gone somewhere else, that might not have happened."

During his sophomore year he found himself gravitating toward his father's profession.

"It was a situation where I knew I had this established practice to come back to, and it was an opportunity," Dr. Casella said. "At that point, I hadn't really decided on anything else."

He enjoyed education and decided to major in it but took a full load of science classes to get ready for optometry school.

When he went to apply to optometry school during his senior year, however, he lacked a microbiology class and knew it was unlikely he would be accepted.

He was turned down, and spent the next year taking classes at the University of South Carolina Aiken and working with his father to learn the ropes. Later that year, he was accepted into Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tenn.

He and Carol - with whom he had reunited a year earlier - then decided to get married. After she graduated with a nursing degree from the Medical University of South Carolina, they wed and packed for Memphis.

As he had at The Citadel (but without morning formations and drills), he found himself studying around the clock to compete at the optometry college while his wife worked as a nurse.

Being a hometown optometrist isn't exactly like an episode of ER, but it is what he loves.

"The life of an optometrist is not real exciting," he said jokingly. "It's why you don't see any sitcoms about people getting their eyes checked."

Coming home

Back in Augusta, a different kind of story was unfolding. By 1978, the opening of Augusta Mall and Regency Mall drained downtown of the major department stores and later, the smaller shops.

"We lost all our anchor retail stores," Dr. Casella said. "I got out of school in '78, which is exactly when Augusta and Regency malls opened up."

Despite the problems downtown, he decided to join his father. Although he could have found work elsewhere, he liked the idea of coming back to an established practice, one that would let him return to his hometown and work beside his father.

He wanted to be in Augusta, and opening his own place would have cost thousands in overhead, renting a space and buying the equipment.

"It was taking advantage of an opportunity I had," he said. "Every day is about getting up and making choices."

Unlike the experience with many father-and-son teams, however, working together wasn't hard for Tom, who was easy-going and flexible, Mrs. Casella said.

Despite downtown's demise, Casella Eye Center continued to grow.

"In this profession, people will follow you," his father said.

As J.C. Penney and J.B. White vacated Broad Street, Victor and Tom Casella held fast to their office in the Lamar Building. They could have moved to a place with more traffic, but it just wasn't good sense, Tom said.

"I've had patients suggest it," he said, but moving closer to Columbia County doesn't work when many patients come over from North Augusta or farther out.

"If we moved to Martinez, we're moving away from our patient base," Victor said.

As many of the retail shops and restaurants that relied on pedestrian traffic closed, patients continued to find their way to the Casellas. Some of that is based on health insurance, which can dictate which providers patients can visit.

Other people were happy there was still a reason to come downtown, which, Tom said, was never as unsafe or as bad off as some people said.

The turnaround the downtown has experienced in the past 10 years - from Artists' Row to The Soul Bar and on down - is impressive, he said.

It just required a little faith and patience.

"He talks up this city," said longtime friend John Fisher, an infectious-disease physician at the Medical College of Georgia. "I think he's kept his office downtown for more reasons than that's where his dad started it. He's very interested in what good things happen to downtown."

Making the move

In 1985, though, Casella Eye Center decided it was time to move - only it was just a few spots down to its present location next to Joe's Underground Caf and the new SRP Federal Credit Union branch.

Tom Casella said the building's new owner was getting ready for major renovations, forcing them to move several floors up. The Lamar Building had been a good location, but the ordeal was becoming too much of a hassle.

"It made you realize it was time to quit renting," he said.

Instead, they worked out a deal to buy its present-day building.

By the mid-1980s, he said, other optometrists downtown were retiring, so he bought their patients lists, helping him expand his father's practice even more.

Even with his success, his wife and friends said, he hasn't forgotten about those who need help. He won't tell you about those times, his wife said. At one point, a local football coach called him, saying that one of his players couldn't afford contacts but that his glasses got in the way while playing. She said her husband took care of him at no charge.

"I always told Tom, 'Treat the patient right,'" Victor Casella said. "Take care of patients who can't pay."

Besides, the elder Dr. Casella said, if you do right by one patient, they'll tell others, who will in turn, also come to see you.

Tom's son Ben said he has already learned a great deal just shadowing his father.

"He will look at a face, and he will talk to the patient, and he will commit something to memory," Ben said. "The next time the patient comes in, he'll have something to talk about. To me, that's sort of one of his defining qualities. He's a great eye doctor. But I think his patients really want to come back and see him."

Those returning patients include Zona Hall, who credits Dr. Casella with helping restore her peripheral vision after a stroke in 2002.

"All I know is, he made it work," she said.

In 1990, Dr. Casella started buying the practice from his father when Victor - who was 73 and had been cutting back - decided to officially retire to care for his ill wife, who died that same year.

Change is coming

Victor Casella's name remains on the windowfront office on Broad almost two decades later. Patients sometimes drop by to see whether he's still practicing or to check on him, his son said.

Retirement isn't on Tom's mind. The real focus, he said, is getting ready for the arrival of Ben, who is working on his residency in ocular diseases at the State University of New York's State College of Optometry.

"It's been a great feeling for him to think he's go into have his son back to practice with him," Mrs. Casella said.

The remodeling is well under way, with new carpet, paint and cabinets in place. Soon the exterior will get a face-lift and Victor's name will come down from the window and replaced with Ben's.

Bringing in Ben's expertise in ocular diseases - especially with an aging baby boomer population and longer life expectancy - will help the family-run optometry office.

With one child in Alabama and Ben in New York, Tom Casella is looking forward to having another of his three children back home.

And then there's golf, which is his other big passion.

"He loves history - history of golf and Augusta. He read everything on the (Augusta) National," said Bill Barrett, a longtime friend.

The optometrist also is putting much of his time into Aquinas High School (where his children also went), helping raise money and working with its recent 50th anniversary celebration.

He remains focused on his business and his town.

"He's proud that he's from Augusta," Mr. Barrett said. "He's trying to keep as much business downtown as he can."

Reach Laura Youngs at (706) 823-3227 or laura.youngs@augustachronicle.com.