Honeymoon Bungalow fans are getting a chance to further relishin vintage marital bliss with the opening of the SecondHoneymoon.
The Honeymoon Bungalow on Government Street sells vintage itemssuch as old records and LPs, dishes, buttons, furniture, homeaccessories and nearly anything old enough to be consideredvintage.
In mid-July the Honeymoon Bungalow will further expand with theopening of a new store just around the corner.
Marsha Rish owns the Honeymoon Bungalow, the soon to open SecondHoneymoon, and the vintage clothing store the Time Warp andconsiders herself the supreme dictator of the Honeymoon Bungalowempire.
The stores specialize in vintage items but also offer retroitems, which are made to resemble vintage.
Rish opened the Honeymoon Bungalow in June 2000 after owningbooths in other antique stores.
Rish said she wanted to own her own business even as achild.
“I’ve grown up with this stuff,” Rish said. “All my life I havebeen attracted to old stuff, even old men. When other kids playedhouse, I was playing merchant.”
Rish was working on her business plan when she walked into theAladdin’s Lamp vintage store on Government Street. After talking tothe owner and revealing her plans to open her own store, the owneroffered her Aladdin’s Lamp.
Rish operated out of Aladdin’s Lamp until leasing a largerspace. When the store moved, she changed the name to the HoneymoonBungalow.
The name derives from Rish’s relationship with her husband andher love of the “mission era” — the 1910s and 20s — and bungalowarchitecture.
Rish credits the success of the Bungalow to what she calls “thepyramid.”
“Telling people about the pyramid is critical,” Rish said.
Rish encourages each new Bungalow customer to tell three friendsabout the store.
If the chain continues, each one of those three friends wouldtell three of his or her friends and so on.
Ivory Chesnut, the buyer for the Time Warp, agreed the storesowed much of their success to word of mouth.
“Word of mouth is an unstoppable thing here,” Chesnut said.”Some people choose to tell no one, but it still leaks out.”
Rish takes extra steps to ensure the Bungalow is not an averagevintage store.
She arranged the store by department instead of by dealer, tookadvantage of natural light, humorously tagged the items, installedgood air conditioning and thoroughly cleans each item.
Rish makes it a point to treat all customers fairly.
“From street people to people with more money than God, we treateverybody the same,” Rish said.
Jessica Roy, assistant manager, said she loves the Bungalowbecause of the clientele.
“Everybody is fun,” Roy said. “People interested in wantingthings from the past — people that want the original and not theknock off — have got a lot of character.”
The Time Warp
The Bungalow first expanded its empire with the Time WarpBoutique in February 2003, when demand for the store’s vintageclothing got out of hand.
Melinda Bloom works at the Time Warp and said before the storeopened the demand for the clothes had far exceeded the space of theBungalow.
“People were changing in the bathrooms,” Bloom said.
The Time Warp is around the corner from the Bungalow, with thepath of green painted footprints leading the way.
The store offers customers vintage clothes and accessories fromthe 1920s and into the 1970s.
Chesnut started bringing clothes to Rish because she was unableto get a job while she was taking care of her sick father. Shestarted bringing vintage clothes into the store she had found onthe side of the road.
Now the Time Warp’s clothes come not only from the side of theroad, but from auctions, estate sales, second hand stores, garagesales and private contacts.
Chesnut said most vintage things have a chance to be wornagain.
“90 percent of vintage gets thrown away,” Chesnut said.
Chesnut said she has always worn vintage, even when she did notknow what vintage was.
“I shopped at thrift stores out of money troubles,” Chesnutsaid. “I never knew that is what vintage was.”
Chesnut said her years of wearing vintage have given her theability to differentiate between vintage and newer retro clothes,as well as detecting quality vintage items.
“The quality is way better in real vintage,” Chesnut said. “Ofcourse that went out the window with polyester in the mid 60s and70s.”
Chesnut said many of the regular customers to the Time Warp arecollege students.
Bloom said though some people come into the store for partycostumes others come in for regular clothing.
“Some people want to dress like this everyday,” Bloom said. “Itis a special kind of customer that will seek us out. Most of themare people who hate the mall.”
Bloom said the best selling items came from both ends of thevintage spectrum. The store sells everything from classic vintageolive blazers to hot pink strapless gowns.
“The most popular things are halfway between colorful andclassic,” Bloom said.
The Second Honeymoon
The Second Honeymoon will give Bungalow fans yet another placeto sift through vintage treasures.
The Second Honeymoon will feature books, maps, cards,photographs, and other paper collectibles as well as bar relateditems, some kitchen items and party related items.
Rish said though the store will feature books and other suchwares, the Second Honeymoon will be an energetic store.
“There will be a lot of energy there — it’s not a library,”Rish said. “There will be jiving music and a lot of action andlaughing. That’s what I love, to hear people come in and laugh allthe way through the store.”
Roy, the Bungalow’s assistant manager and a local artist, isdesigning the concept and look of the store.
“Basically we just keep growing and getting so full,” Roysaid.
Roy said she hopes to offer complimentary coffee, tea orlemonade to customers of the Second Honeymoon, and give them timeto look through everything in the store.
Roy said she also hopes to feature other local artists.
“We are good friends with a lot of our customers,” Roy said. “Wefind out their hobbies and if they do art. We would like to doactual [art] shows.”
Roy said most of the art in the Bungalow is vintage, but somecomes from local artists.
“Most of the art is not new,” Roy said. “There are vintage paintby numbers, paintings on velvet and [other] anonymouspaintings.”
Roy said the bar items are very popular with youngercustomers.
“Young people like to come in and look at barware, martiniglasses and champagne glasses and vintage bar signs and mirrors andthings like that,” Roy said. “We sold three bar signsyesterday.”
Roy said party items such as ashtrays, fondue sets and lazysusans are always popular as well.
Rish said she hopes to open the store as soon as possible,hopefully in mid-July.