Searsport mall not the same old thing

By Jane Roy Brown, Correspondent | March 31, 2007

SEARSPORT, Maine -- Route 1 hugs the coastal tracery of inlets and promontories along Penobscot Bay , stringing together old ports built on shipbuilding and fishing, then fattened by the China trade.

At the head of the bay, in a deep-water inlet near the mouth of the Penobscot River , the town of Searsport was once home to a tenth of all the country's deep-water sea captains. They left behind a row of grand mansions facing the ocean and a lot of booty from far away places. Small wonder that Searsport now bills itself as the "antiques capital" of Maine.

Of course, it is hard to prove that kind of claim, but Route 1, which winds through the center of town, certainly contains an impressive number of antiques shops and flea markets. This can make for a maddening parade of tailgaters in the peak summer season .

A decade ago, nothing would have been open in winter, and the majority of the vintage-goods purveyors still shutter their shops between November and April. Others are open by appointment or on weekends. But at least one place stays open all year round, seven days a week: Searsport Antique Mall.

The name isn't especially evocative, nor is the architecture: a plain, sprawling shed built 15 years ago. But inside, 70 dealers from all over Maine and beyond rent space on two floors. Unlike so many of the more-atmospheric old barns where visitors are invited to rummage at will, this building is warm, dry, and well lighted.

"And clean," adds David Oakes, who works for Nancy Boyington the business owner of the acre or so of the Antique Mall. Skiers and snowmobilers headed north to the Mount Hermon ski area in Prospect and south to the Camden Snow Bowl make up most of the winter visitors.

Dealers don't tend their stalls in person, leaving that much more space for bureaus and piles of old dishes. They delegate the business of selling to a small staff near the entrance. Which stands beneath the giant, baleful head of a long-deceased water buffalo that once graced a wall in Perry's Nut House, a famous tourist trap in neighboring Belfast. (It's still there in name, but the safari-era kitsch that distinguished the place was auctioned off a decade ago.)

There are plenty of other Perry's alumni mounted throughout the mall, and they are the only items not for sale. "They're just for decoration," they are owned by the Boyington's.

What is for sale is a world of vintage goods and bona fide antiques priced from a few dollars to about $3,500, making this one of the more reasonable spots to clink crystal, check pottery imprints, and poke through baskets of buttons. In stall after stall, most big categories of collectibles face the wide aisles, making the goods easily visible: Fiestaware and old wooden tools, model ships and cars, military uniforms, powder horns, Art Deco cigarette cases, and Arts and Crafts tiles.

Furniture is on display, too, from marble-topped dressers to an oak card catalog from some recently modernized village library. Cast iron fritter tins and not-so-ancient rolling pins have their place near a tray of silverware and metal canisters for flour and sugar. All objects bear neat price tags, and, in the absence of the seller, there isn't much dickering to be done.

The one category not well represented is maritime antiques. "They're all in museums," says one of the employees. Like the excellent Penobscot Marine Museum on Searsport's Main Street, which is open from May through October.

The good news is that many of the old sea captains' homes are open as inns and bed- and- breakfasts. And with Hamilton Marine, another big shed housing a marine-supply and clothing store across the parking lot from the mall, a visitor could easily fill an off-season weekend.

Jane Roy Brown, a freelance writer in Western Massachusetts, can be reached at regan-brown.com.

Now Voted "Best of The Best" Antique Mall in Waldo County 2007