Arnette Eyewear, a high-end sunglasses brand popular with surfers, skaters, and skiers, quietly closed down their Encinitas world headquarters last week. The building at 444 South Coast Highway, which also served as a sales and marketing showroom and retail store, was cleared out within a few days.

The general manager, Fab, said the brand is owned by Oakley, the global line of action sports apparel and equipment. He assumes the product line will continue through Oakley’s world headquarters in Foothill Ranch in Orange County. But he’s not sure about the plans for the future of the Arnette brand.

“The only thing I know is we are all out of a job,” said Fab as he was clearing out product and supplies on his last day. Several phone and email requests to speak with Oakley’s media representative went unanswered.

The building also hosted a small skate area, open to a few locals. “They [skaters] were always respectful and picked up their trash,” said Fab.

According to one of the skaters, the group also respected the guys at Arnette, saying they knew when they should leave, like when things got busy inside the office. “It was a great place to hang out,” said one 14-year old.

To show his appreciation for the five regular skaters who were hanging out on the last day, Fab gave each of them some Arnette apparel, sunglasses (retail list price of over $100), and let them take home Arnette’s black logo’d skate rail and grind box. “We were happy to have them around,” said Fab.

It was just a few years ago that the old service bays and shop of the 1955-built Coast Brake and Wheel building were remodeled in an industrial modern style to house Arnette’s headquarters. One of Coast Brake’s original Hwy. 101 signs still remained as part of the building’s design.

When Arnette moved its headquarters to coastal North County, it joined other local action sports companies, such as GoPro, Cardiff Skate Company, Nixon, Spy, and Transworld Publishing.