By STEVEN JUPITER
MIDDLEBURY—If you ever needed an antique anvil, Sam Glaser was your man.
“God only knows how many anvils I’ve sold over the years,” Sam laughed, seated at his dining table in his home in Brandon. “There were 14 anvils in the shop when we bought the business, but they had such high prices, no one bought any. We lowered the price and sold them all. We’ve sold 9 anvils just this summer.”
And that approach to the antiques business—price things reasonably and keep the inventory moving—made The Barn Antiques successful enough to become a summer staple for the past 16 years. Every spring, Sam and Sharon Glaser (sometimes aided by their daughter, Shelby) threw open the doors to their bare-bones structure on Route 7 south of Middlebury and welcomed locals and tourists alike to browse through the dizzying range of antiques they’d gathered over the winter months: tools, furniture, glassware, jewelry, pottery, rugs, clothing…whatever had caught their eye during the buying season.
“Our shop presents like a ‘general store.’ We were never ‘fine’ antiques,” said Sharon. “We always had quality items, but at a price people could afford. And a lot of things people could actually use.” In fact, Sharon often taped images from magazines next to items to give customers a sense of how things could be repurposed in the home. A vintage metal chicken feeder could become an indoor herb garden, for example. The goal was always to convince customers that any item could find a place, and often a useful one, in their homes.
When the Glasers bought the business from a dealer named Jim Blanchette in 2007, the barn was packed to the rafters with inventory.
“The stuff on top was really good,” said Sam, making clear what he thought of the stuff beneath the top-shelf items. “There was 1,000 pounds of scrap iron. It took us a year and a half just to sort through everything and organize it all.”
And buying a retail business in 2007 presented its own challenges, as the Great Financial Crisis put an end to the freewheeling days of the early 00s. Belts tightened, second-home owners scaled back, and the antiques business took a hit.
“Many old dealers were used to getting high prices,” said Sam. “We were new. All we wanted to do was sell. We started to thrive.”
But the business has changed, even for the Glasers. They’re closing the shop. September will be their last month and they’re hoping a 25%-off-everything sale will clear the barn before they officially shut down.
“It’s getting harder and harder to find good merchandise,” said Sharon. “This was just the right time.”
“Initially, only one of us needed to be in the shop,” said Sam. “Now, one person can’t handle the place alone and it’s harder to procure stuff.”
Finding salable merchandise is a job in itself. During the off season, Sharon works as a manager in guest services at Killington while Sam scours estate sales, auctions, and antique fairs like Brimfield in Massachusetts.
“Old estates don’t really exist anymore,” he said. Dealers and pickers have combed through New England, cleaning out the attics and basements of seemingly every old house they could find. The amount of energy it now takes to keep the barn filled with desirable pieces has reached a tipping point.
But they have no regrets.
The Glasers moved to Vermont from New Jersey just before the Financial Crisis, hoping to start a new chapter in their lives.
“Shelby was out of high school,” said Sharon. “We were looking to move to Vermont. We made a couple of trips up here for our second act. We were looking to buy a business and what came up was the antique barn.”
“I wrote a check a week later,” laughed Sam.
Jim Blanchette, the previous owner, continued to run the shop for another season while the Glasers looked for a house. They ended up finding one in Brandon on Townwide Yard Sale Day. There was a “For Sale” sign in the yard and they bought the place, which is still their home.
Over the years, the shop brought them into contact with locals, tourists, second-home owners, and celebrities. They forged real friendships with customers and other dealers, and the barn became a place for people to congregate and chat.
“We came to Vermont knowing no one,” said Sam. “Now I feel I know everybody.”
By the way, there are still some anvils in the shop.
