Find Your Next Treasure at Hewitt Estates and Antiques

Just kidding! It is now Hewitt Estates and Antiques // Rachel Weatherholt

There’s a new antique store in town, and it lives in the old Van Winkle’s Interiors building on the corner of Hewitt and Oakes. Hewitt Estates and Antiques opened a few days a week in February of 2021, and in June 2021 they opened their doors full-time. Aside from being a large antique shop, they also host monthly estate sales and online auctions.

Signs lead the way // Rachel Weatherholt

Their estate sales are in-person and run from Thursday to Saturday. If you are a serious estate sale shopper, you will want to read up on the rules and hours listed on the Estate Sales page of their website. The first day of the sale involves monitoring entry to the sale by assigning each individual attendee a number.

The second day of the sale is first-come-first-serve style and offers a discount on remaining items plus the opportunity to bargain on price. The third and final day of the sale offers an even deeper discount on the remainder of the goods. They also post sneak peeks of the sale items on their social media accounts so you can get an idea whether or not you need to bolt down there and be first in line.

We stopped by to peruse the latest estate sale on its second day and had a good chat with owner Jayne, Jayne’s daughter Kingsley, and their friend and shop manager Renate. Jayne is a retired nurse who opened the shop with her family. The heart of the business is estate services. They do clean-outs of all kinds, mainly estates, but they will also come to haul away stuff from an overwhelmed yard or storage unit.

She gave us a tour of their estate process and it is pretty impressive: essentially packing, unpacking, and moving house every few weeks. Two days after its close, the estate sale we attended will be packed up and moved out. Another estate that is lying in wait will be unpacked, cataloged, itemized and set up. And on its heels, another estate will be loaded in to wait in the wings for the cycle to start all over again.

More estate sale items // Rachel Weatherholt

While the estate sales are housed on the basement floor, the main floor is a treasure trove of amazing antiques of all kinds. I’m not talking about recycled mass-produced stuff from the early 2000s that are passed off as “antiques”, I’m talking about real antiques. One-of-a-kind pieces to delight collectors. They have a few vendors and artists set up throughout the main floor that add to the eclectic range of goods.

I wish I had a use for this crate // Rachel Weatherholt

We have visited the shop a few times in the last few months and it seems there is a lot of turn-over and rotation of stock, which makes it a shop you’ll want to visit regularly. A few pieces that I had my eye on during my first visit were gone by my next visit, like a gigantic whale vertebrae. Apparently someone else out there collects bones besides me. I’ve seen trunks galore, paintings, medical implements, furniture of all kinds (I’ve even seen an antique autopsy table!), statuary, kitchenware, taxidermy, mirrors, jewelry, photographs, Americana, cultural artifacts, postcards. There is so much to see that you’ll want to take your time.

Something for every collection // Rachel Weatherholt

Over the last few months, the boyfriend and I have adopted a few paintings (unknown provenance but they spoke to my soul), an antique property surveyors transit from the mid-1900s (he is a sucker for old tools and apparatus), a couple of random books (I am a sucker for books), some old celluloid photograph portraits (the creepier the better), and some old medical paraphernalia like a cool jar of saltpeter (doesn’t everyone need a jar of saltpeter??).

Makes the shopper in me giddy // Rachel Weatherholt

If you’re in the market for some cool pieces to add to your home, or if you have an hour or two to fill, stop by and say hello. Don’t forget to sign up for their newsletter to be notified of upcoming estate sales and auctions. And if you happen to see another cool whale vertebrae, please call me!