Sean C. Morgan
Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra have taken up residence on Main Street, along with a pirate, a fireman, a couple of elephants, a hippopotamus and much, much more.
The life-size statues and mannequins are visible through the windows of an antique store Brad and Amy Newport plan to open in the former location of Trash to Treasures, McCammon’s Furniture and Crescent Video.
The store, called Amy’s Unique Antiques and Collectibles, is filled with a variety of antiques, glasswork and woodwork. It’s a departure from the Newports’ other ventures, which include the Mr. Lucky’s Deli and All-Star Pizza restaurants, and various commercial properties around the city, as well as a ranch on Old Holley Road. But antiques are familiar territory for their family.
“It came from my grandparents,” Brad Newport said of the inventory. “They collected for 20 years – probably a lot longer than that but in this area for 20 years.
“I was already wanting to do something here. I had a bunch of stuff to get rid of too.”
He decided to open a gift-antique shop, he said. It won’t have clothing and won’t really compete with such nearby businesses as Trash to Treasure or Rita’s Relics.
Ideally, it might bring more people into the area and help them out, he said. His store aims more to attract high-end gifts and antiques purchasers.
Glass sculptures will run in the $2,000 range, including Murano glass, and pieces by artists like James Nowak, John Cook of Gearhart and Thomas Blackshear.
“There’s a lot of crazy stuff here,” Newport said.
He plans to set up rooms, as in a house – a kitchen, a living room and a bedroom, where everything is for sale. If someone buys something, Newport plans to bring something else in.
The store will include table-top slabs of petrified wood from Newport’s Holleywood Ranch, where Newport lives and a prolific source of petrified wood.
“I also have a crazy collection of dolls I’ll bring in,” Newport said.
People interested in visiting Holleywood Ranch will be able to get hold of Newport at the new store, he said. He has always kept the ranch separate from his All-Star Pizza restaurant.
Newport’s goal is to open before the Oregon Jamboree camping and country music festival at the end of July, but an opening date is uncertain, he said. It’ll be open when it’s done.
The statuary in the front windows has piqued the interest of passersby, he said. “I love this setup. I love that it’s so much different.”
Next door, at Trash to Treasure, Newport said, customers are constantly asking about the statues; and if owner Larry Patton had $2 for every time he has been asked about it, he could retire.
“Just since I’ve been here, a lot of it’s already sold,” Newport said. Friends keep asking him how much for this or that in the window.
“By the time I open, half this stuff is going to be sold,” he said.
He expects the display items to change constantly, he said, and it will always be different and even weird sometimes.
The quality will always be high, he said. “If I wouldn’t want it myself, I wouldn’t even bring it in.”
He plans to open another store selling more run-of-the-mill household goods, good quality but not the high-end items he is planning at the antique store, Newport said. “Nothing but the cool stuff here.”
He will resupply through estate sales, buying them outright, Newport said, and he will begin running monthly sales at the auto-body shop at 4101 Hwy. 20.
“This is the one thing I always liked doing,” Newport said. “When me and Amy first got together, we loved collecting.”