Photography by Scott Suchman
For most folks, a trip to the beach is one headlong rush to get to the sand. But I like to slow down a little and savor the journey. This could mean veering off my tried-and-true route to explore a little-known town or to hunt down the best fried oyster sandwich. Route 404—our primary path to Rehoboth Beach—just so happens to be lousy with excellent antiques stores. On a recent trip, shopping trumped lunch, as my husband, Kevin, and I decided to hit a half dozen shops along the way. I wasn’t looking for anything special—though I’m a sucker for vintage linens—but unbeknownst to me, Kevin had an agenda.
Our first stop on 404 is Antiques to Go East, a deceivingly small-looking shop just outside of Denton (much smaller than its sister stores in Annapolis and Pasadena). The building may have been a petite house originally, owner David Holt speculates, but it previously housed Jimmy the Greek’s restaurant. A former antiques dealer turned its four dining rooms into antique showrooms, where now twenty-five or so vendors display their treasures-for-sale. Holt aims for variety in his shop, and offers both antique and new pieces. Just as I walk through the door, my eyes immediately light on a white country-style kitchen cabinet with decorative tin panels ($235), a reproduction made by a craftsman in Virginia. A further step or two into the store reveals more furniture, including a tall hand-carved corner cabinet with hand-blown glass from 1840 and a nineteenth-century English game table with ball-and-claw feet and blue felt playing surface ($1,800). Like nearly all of the antique stores we visited, the Denton shop has offerings from different vendors, which gives it multiple personalities. Though fine furniture is surely a strong point, I pass a rack of military uniforms and old World War II Army recruitment posters (military stuff’s a specialty) and wander through the 1950s corner, contemplating a seasonal display with a retro-chic aluminum Christmas tree (too contemporary for my old rowhome). Back at a coin case in the front of the store, a young man in an army surplus top coat is thrilled to find a 1930s Mercury dime, a ten-cent piece with a running figure of the Greek god on one side. In the showcase adjacent, I gaze at Fire King Jadeite ware, the milky green glass that’s wildly popular these days. “It was cheap until Martha Stewart [publicized it],” dealer Virginia Curry murmurs as I take in the double egg cups and plates and an unusual example of a nude woman reclining in a pool-like bowl ($42). Meanwhile, Kevin shows up grinning, three National Beer glasses from the 1950s or 60s in hand. One of us is off to a good start. Open seven days, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Route 404, 24241 Shore Hwy., Denton. 410-479-5205.
We have to double back on Route 404 because we’ve missed The White Swan Antiques on our first pass through the outskirts of Denton. It’s on the other side of 404, for one thing, and unlike the tidy, ladylike Antiques to Go, The White Swan is a glorious, rambling mess of a place. Could this really be an antiques shop? I wonder aloud. (Actually, the 1947 building served for decades as a livestock auction barn, complete with raked levels for viewing the animals; the last bids were called out in 1984.) Wicker furniture, wrought-iron trellises, even a couple clawfoot bathtubs litter the business’s front yard/car park, making it a bit of an obstacle course between car and sprawling barn. Though there is a large sign out front, I’m more convinced that the barn is actually the antique store in question by the smaller sign that announces: “Awesome furniture ahead.” Inside, another sign advises: “Attention. Your husband called and said buy anything you want.”
If I had a truck and a larger house, I’d want a lot. Victor Beecher’s barn is filled with restored and re-imagined furniture of all kinds and colors, but mostly one size—LARGE. It’s the kind of place where I would love to spend hours just getting lost.
We stroll through the chilly space and find intricately carved headboards, fireplace mantels (Could I replace the one someone removed from our living room, I wonder?), black cabinets painted in chinoiserie designs. Upstairs, I find a nearly new quilt rack (but alas, no quilt to display on it). Downstairs, the base of a huge mint-green, “awesome jelly cabinet” is from the 1890s; the top part of the cabinet is topped with a fleur-de-lis taken from the headboard of an old bed, and the drawer pulls are newly carved wooden female heads ($795). Unusual, but compelling.
Although he sells untouched antiques, Beecher’s real love is “fixing” or creating new pieces out of furniture others have sold or discarded. (He gets most of his furniture from Dixon’s weekly auction in Crumpton). He also claims to have the largest distressed paint business in the mid-Atlantic region, and he and a small team of employees do paint and restoration work on-site. Many of the pieces have a French country air, a sort of elegant casualness about them. “God just blows my head with ideas,” Beecher tells me in his workshop, pointing out the old pipe organ keyboard that could become a sign for a jazz club. “It’s fun every day coming to work.” It’s fun to visit, too. Open Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. 1-5 p.m. 24110 Shore Hwy., Route 404, Denton. 410-479-4229.
As we approach Bridgeville, Kevin and I decide to take the business Route 404, rather than bypass Bridgeville’s main thoroughfare, Market Street. We’re glad we chose this route when we spot Tim Curry’s delightfully quirky Bridgeville Emporium.
Customers often ask Curry how many dealers rent space in the shop. “It’s just me,” he says rather sheepishly. “I just have a lot of different personalities. It’s scary.” Well, scary may be an overstatement, but there is a lot to choose from in his old-fashioned storefront shop. The Bridgeville Emporium is really only 5,000 square feet, but it’s divided by draperies into myriad small sections—some pastel country floral, some jewel-toned silk dupioni, all for sale—that make it seem like a never-ending maze of ephemera. “I just never wanted to limit myself when I opened the shop,” Curry explains.
The description “emporium” perfectly suits this shop, where Barbie dolls and toy tanker trucks brush up against the levers, wires, and plugs of an old switchboard from Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company in Chicago ($450). Perched on top of a glass display case holding crocheted afghans, in every hue of a 1970s yarn shop, are baskets of buttons (ten cents each) and spools of thread. An oak pump organ ($1,100) fills one corner; grand carved Victorian mirrors fill another ($1,100 to $1,875). I see linen tea towels in vintage motifs, doll-house furniture, and posters of country music stars (some of them signed). A quilt done in patriotic red, white, and blue and emblazoned with the figure of an Indian chief intrigues, especially because the $350 price tag includes the original pattern. But I move on, only to find Kevin transfixed in front of a wall of beer cans ($2.50 each). “You’ve already bought beer glasses,” I remind him, and reluctantly we thread our way back through the store and out into the light. Hours generally Thurs.-Mon., 10 a.m.-5 p.m., but vary; call ahead. 105 Market St., Bridgeville, Del. 302-337-7663.
If the Bridgeville Emporium is flea market fun, think of Linden Hall Antiques as estate sale elegance. From the outside, the building looks like an Ethan Allen or some other contemporary furniture store. Inside, it’s full of classic pieces, such as a Victorian-era bed made from carved walnut ($2,250) or a circa-1875 mahogany folding chair with a needlepoint cushion ($235). I’m drawn to the high quality “folk art” that’s scattered throughout. Yes, they have a requisite “lawn jockey” ($585), but they also have handsome decoys at the front of the store. An elegant, nearly life-sized black swan carved by R. Madison Mitchell, “the dean of Havre de Grace decoy makers,” takes my breath away (as does its price tag, $5,200). A basket of somewhat more affordable ducks sits nearby ("any decoy $200"), and a carved diorama ($1,400) of wooden fish, which was used as a prop for a Connecticut theater in the 1930s, hangs on the wall just behind. What I really crave, however, is the pair of wool felt “penny rugs” ($550 each), decorative hand-pieced and embroidered textiles that date from the Depression; the black one with the brown leaf pattern would look terrific next to the crazy quilt hanging in my dining room, but I’ll need to save a little before I make that splurge. Ah, well. I know where to come back and look. Open every day but Wed. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 16487 Sussex Hwy., Bridgeville, Del. 302-337-9097.
With its glass storefront and wooden floors, the Georgetown Antique Market in downtown Georgetown reminds me of an old five-and-dime store, chock-full of the bric-a-brac of everyday life. There’s not a lot of elegance here, and you have to sift through the truly tacky—a framed photo of a chihuahua in a coffee mug that looks pulled from a magazine ($3), a series of birds cross-stitched in variegated Day-Glo embroidery floss—to find any treasures. But treasures there are. Along with ladies’ hats and handkerchiefs from another era, I admire a mint-green Fire King stove in near mint condition (a bargain at $275) and a matching Hoosier cabinet ($250). Upstairs, I find a miniature player piano, a kids’ toy made by J. Chien & Co that’s all set to crank out “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” ($175). The real finds here, however, are the quilts of various ages and conditions hanging on walls and folded in piles. There’s one labeled “old quilt” in what I think might be a Kansas City Star lily pattern, a Courthouse Steps quilt in vivid 1940s prints (backed in a non-Disney Cinderella and Fairy Godmother-patterned fabric), and a lovely Grandmother’s Flower Garden hanging behind an empty bed frame. There seems to be a little bit of everything here—everything, however, except interesting beer glasses for my husband. Onward! Open Mon. through Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 105 E. Market St., Georgetown, Del., 302-856-7118.
Our final stop for the day is just outside of Georgetown. Stone Angel Antiques recently expanded into a new, 3,000-square-foot, three-story house. As far as I can tell, every bit of space is used, from the peaked-ceiling attic to the second-floor cedar closets to the kitchen. Even the bathroom is utilized as a showroom, draped with fabrics and filled with vases and antique handbags. In one of the upstairs bedrooms, I check out a handsome, simply carved headboard and then see the chest and washstand that are sold with it ($950 for the three pieces). Downstairs in the kitchen, all the cabinets are open, displaying Fiesta Ware and a small collection of salt and pepper shakers. (Statues of Liberty, anyone? Yellow cats?) My eye catches on a pair of yellow and black patterned dishes of a man and a woman in Edwardian dress ($10 for the pair). “Ted” is mustachioed, bow-tied, and looking straight ahead. “Leona’s” long-lashed eyes look downward, and her hair is pulled back in a bun. Each plate is dated November 27, 1968, a souvenir, perhaps, of a marriage someone no longer wanted to remember.
My better half remembers to ask owner Pam Asa about beer glasses, but all she has are several handsome steins and some green-tinted pilsners. No matter. We’re only a few miles from Rehoboth, it’s just minutes before five, and we already have new beer glasses to fill for our cocktail hour. All in a day’s work. Open Thurs.-Mon., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 28705 Lewes-Georgetown Hwy., Milton, Del. 302-684-8559.
When she’s not hunting down antiques, Mary K. Zajac scours the region for food finds as CL’s restaurant critic.
