Freeport antiques dealers forced to leave market following Linda Bean’s death (2024)

FREEPORT — Nestled between weathered sextants, compasses, classic ship steering wheels and nautical charts, Steve Bunker and Sharon Bondroff find their life’s work. Now, they and their collection of marine antiques have to find a new home.

The Freeport Antiques & Heirlooms Showcase, located at 31 Main St., houses over 40 antiques dealers, including Bondroff and Bunker, and was owned by Linda Bean, the granddaughter of L.L.Bean founder Leon Leonwood Bean. Following her death in March, the building was put up for sale on July 22,and the vendors were notified they must move out by Labor Day.

With peak antique-selling season around the corner in the fall and only a month to move out, some of the vendors said they are surprised and hurt at the decision and worried about the logistical and financial burdens it will cause.

“Linda would not have run us off this time of the year,” Bunker said.

The 13,238-square-foot building in downtown Freeport, which Bean appears to have bought in November 2016, is on the market for $1.9 million. It is one of several properties and businesses in Bean’s $122 million estate that also includes the temporarily closed Port Clyde General Store, some lobster wharves and a handful of restaurants.

Bean did not specify her wishes for the antiques building in her will and said it was up to her personal representative, Veronika Ruth Carlson, to decide whether or not to sell her properties. However, she did reference continuing the businesses she owned.

“To the extent possible, (Carlson) will coordinate with my sons and my estate team to continue my businesses, lobster and products brands, completion of my charitable commitments and historic preservation projects, and the disposition of my Teel Island real estate and fine art collections,” the will states.

Carlson, an accountant who is the president of Bean’s Perfect Maine hospitality company, “knows the most about my habits and preferences,” Bean wrote in her will.

Carlson could not be reached for comment. Her lawyer, Kurt Klebe of Verrill Dana, declined to talk about why the Freeport building was put up for sale and would not respond to concerns raised by vendors, saying he was “not at liberty to comment” as they were “business matters not legal matters.”

‘BRINGING THINGS BACK TO LIFE’

Bondroff and Bunker, 79, have been vendors at the Freeport antiques showcase since it opened there in 2018. Previously, they owned China Sea Marine Trading Company in Baltimore for 20 years before moving the shop to Portland, where it stayed for almost a decade. Eventually, looking for a slower pace of life, they transitioned to selling their antiques at multi-vendor shops and were located in Wiscasset before coming to Freeport.

Bunker grew up on boats, as a ship’s boy, with his father who was a marine engineer. At sea, he began to learn about repairing ships and gained an appreciation for maritime objects and antiques. After exploring several careers, including a year in the military, he said his interests and experience led him into restoring antiques.

“I love bringing things back to life. … It’s saving the material culture of your life, of the world that you live in, of the country that you live in,” Bunker said. “Our society, our historical roots, are (not) best reflected in the people we raise but in the things that we made, with the things we created and bringing those things back to life. I think it’s pretty important.”

Bunker has family history in Maine, so he always considered it home and wanted to someday live there. He met Bondroff in Baltimore and they eventually made the move to Maine and got married.

The couple, who live in Gray, are unsure what to do after they leave their space in the Freeport shop. They said they haven’t found any antiques shops in Maine with space available for their business and most likely will have to move their collection into a storage unit for the time being.

“I have no place to go,” Bunker said. “We may end up going out of state, which I hate to do; it took me so long to get back to Maine.”

They also fear the logistical challenges involved with moving over 40 vendors at once. They said no assistance or guidance was provided to orchestrate the move.

Laura de Haas is the manager of the antiques shop as well as a vendor. She said she notified vendors as soon as she knew about the decision to sell the building and end the business. She said the timeframe vendors were given to depart was “well within” the terms of the contract and “even included a buffer to ease the burden on dealers,” she wrote in an email.

De Haas said vendors were offered lower rent in August to “ease the financial burden on dealers.”

‘NOT A LOT OF HAPPY PEOPLE’

She said she is aware of two vendors who had expressed concerns at the closing, but has not heard from others.

“The loss of Linda Bean with her passion for antiques is far more devastating for most of us than the dissolution of the business,” de Haas wrote.

Wendy Wyman, 61, works full time as the assistant manager, as well as a vendor.

“We didn’t expect that we would have to shut down so quickly, so that’s unsettling. Not a lot of happy people around here,” Wyman said. “People are scrambling to figure out where to put all their things.”

Wyman says that as much as Bean, the vendors and customers loved the business, she was warned that the family and those handling the will might not feel the same about it.

“What I’d really like (is) if some of the dealers could pool together and come up with another shop,” Wyman said.

Other dealers were not working at the building Wednesday and did not return calls.

Lee Kolbe, 68, a regular customer from Phippsburg, was shopping there on Wednesday and expressed sadness at the end of the business and thanked the vendors for their work.

“It was a nice place to stop and lose yourself for a while … I’ll miss it,” Kolbe said.

Bondroff and Bunker have accepted the need to move. But they said they wish they had an opportunity to speak with someone directly about the decision or to stay until the tourism season ends in October.

“I would like the courtesy of doing things the way things are generally done in Maine,” Bunker said. “By considering each other’s interests and doing the best we can to make it smooth.”