Timeless Treasures, a popular Silvermine antiques shop owned by Wiltonians Tom and Helen Olson, is preparing to close. The shop will hold a clearance sale through the end of the month.
Though the Olsons are far from making a final decision, they hope to reopen the shop sometime soon, so long as they can find the right location.
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“This is a very hard act to follow,” Tom Olson said, referring to the antique Country Gifts building they have occupied the last few years.
“We’ve lived in Wilton a long time, but we’ve met more people by being here,” he said recently at his shop, which is full of handmade chairs, tables, and decorations.
“The customers have given us such a warm feeling,” Ms. Olson added. “I think they appreciate that we have enhanced the life here.”
Tom and Helen Olson stand in their Silvermine store, Timeless Treasures, which is closing Labor Day weekend. (Christopher Burns photo)
Economic hardships are not the cause of the four-year-old shop’s demise. Rather, an expired lease is to blame.
“Business has been good. One of the best things is that the community has been so welcoming. People come in and just enjoy the shop,” Tom Olson said. “It was a wonderful side effect of being located here.”
“Doing some business and making money also helps,” he added with a smile. “It’s fun to see this stuff go to people who really fall in love with it.”
Since the Silvermine Tavern restaurant closed several years ago, Timeless Treasures has been the only open business near the old building. Now that the developer who owns the tavern is renovating the entire site, the Olsons’ lease has not been renewed.
The Olsons opened Timeless Treasures during the height of the recent recession, they said. Though the store has not been a cash-cow, it has turned a profit.
“We were opening when everyone else was closing. But, when you enjoy something this much, it works well. If you had to do this because you had to make money, I’m not so sure it would work. You have to love it, and you have to like to associate with other people that love it,” Tom Olson said.
One exciting aspect of the store, Ms. Olson said, was keeping up with the latest trends and fitting their store’s offerings to residents’ and designers’ needs.
“People would come in and say, ‘I want this,’ or ‘I need this thing,’ without even looking around the store. Or they would bring us the dimensions they need something to fit into,” she said.
“So I would go around (into the two large barns on the property) and see what I could find,” Olson added.
Olson himself was first turned on to antique collecting by the father of a childhood friend who used to “pay us $5 to uncrate antiques” he had bought in New York, the shop owner said.
His friend’s father, who even owned an original Old Ironsides table, had museums come to his home “all the time” to look at his finds, “but everything was always used. We ate off the tables. We sat on the chairs,” Olson said.
In recent years, both the Olsons have seen some changes in the antiques industry: prices have dropped and collectors are using antiques to add life to modern rooms.
“Mid-century modern is very popular right now,” Tom Olson said. “You can add three or four antiques to a room that really pop, and it can make your whole home. People are doing some unique things, and thinking out of the box. We’re seeing pieces used in a different way than they were created.”
Timeless Treasures, at 193 Perry Avenue, Norwalk, will be open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11-5 through the end of August.
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Christopher Burns is a reporter with The Wilton Bulletin, a Hersam Acorn newspaper.