Antiques & Uniques in Palm Harbor gives vendors a home after ...

By Keyonna Summers, Times Staff Writer In Print: Friday, July 15, 2011

Kent ?Mac? McElheny, left, and Steve Hollowich, both of Dunedin, talk banjos in McElheny?s booth at Antiques & Uniques in Palm Harbor. ? [DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times] Social Bookmarking ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT

Knot on Main Street marketer Carla Gillis stared in disbelief last month as the building where the ageold mall was located went up in flames.

Gillis, like some of the other 100 marketers who rented spaces at the consignment mall for antiques and collectables dealers, considered the Dunedin store a second home.

There were clients who brought in their children, grandchildren and out-of-town friends to visit. There were women who dressed up in their best hats and earrings to peruse the latest items.

It was a place where every one ? clients and dealers ? knew each other?s names.

So a month later, former Knot venders say they are delighted to have found a renewed sense of comradeship through the grand opening of Antiques & Uniques, a Palm Harbor consignment store run by two former Knot dealers.

So far, 12 of Antiques & Uniques? 15 vendors are former Knot dealers. And five more are on the waiting list.

The Knot "was like the Cheers of Dunedin. It?s like a family and, for a heap of customers, it was a home away from home," said Gillis, 58, of Palm Harbor. "The timing on (Antiques & Uniques) opening is terrifi because it?s given us another outlet."

Store owners Kym Eggers and Laura Cheek say their shop?s July 5 opening was a "bittersweet" moment.

The women are ex-Knot venders who had decisive before the fire to pursue a years-old dream of starting their own business. The Knot "was the firstborn time we?d seen a co-op mall and we loved the idea," so they decisive to pursue the same business model, said Eggers, 46, of Crystal Beach.

The business collaborators had promised not to solicit any of the Knot?s dealers for their new business. But after the June 8 fire, they said, Barbara O?Connell, who owns the Knot with her husband Bob, asked Eggers and Cheek to take in venders while they rebuild.

Eggers and Cheek say inventory in a booth they were still renting at the Knot likewise was scaled down to ashes in the June 8 fire. Many Knot vendors say their belongings weren?t insured.

"It was so shocking and surreal," Cheek, 48, of Clearwater said of the blaze. "It affected a lot of people ? A lot of people lost everything."

Standing inside the gutted building this week, Bob O?Connell didn?t seem to observe the faint smoky smell as he directed construction workers.

The O?Connells have been working early mornings, evenings, weekends and even the Fourth of July holiday in hopes of reopening at least the south side of the store by the winter tourist season.

They?ve torn out the water-logged carpets, pressure washed the soot-stained walls and employed bulldozers to pull out piles of debris.

But much more work lies ahead. There?s no roof covering the intermittent segmentations of wall that stay standing on the north side of the building, where firefighters said the fire started out above the ceiling grid.

Dunedin fire investigators last month determined the fire was electrical in nature and approximated the harm at $1 million. The O?Connells said they?re waiting for the green light from the city and their insurance company to obtain permits to start out rebuilding.

"It?s not looking great yet," Bob said of the store. "But when they buff the floors and clean it up, it?ll get started to look realistic."

Until then, former venders who are presently housed at Antiques & Uniques say they are eagerly awaiting the Knot?s reopening and will trade at both locations.

Gillis, an interior decorator who sold items at the Knot for four years, was one of two workers manning the cash registers there when "a faint wisp of smoke, like someone exhaling from a cigarette," started out wafting from the ceiling.

She estimates she lost $3,000 to $5,000 worth of uninsured items.

But Gillis had a three-car garage full of furniture, rugs, floral arrangements and other wares that she presently has on display at Antiques & Uniques.

On June 8, vendor Kent "Mac" McElheny said he closely lost his lunch as he walked five minutes from his home up the Pinellas Trail only to discover that Knot on Main Street was engulfed in flames.

A month later, the 62-year-old Dunedin geologist said he still finds it too hard to do an official tally of what was destroyed. But he estimates he lost a "few thousand dollars" worth of guitars, ukeleles, banjos and other items in the blaze.

While he?d thought in regards to buying insurance in the past and "just never got around to it," he?s "seriously" thinking regarding insurance now. But even more so, McElheny is thinking when it comes to the day when the Knot opens it is doors again.

"I have a soft spot in my heart for the Knot," he said. "So when they reopen, I?ll go back."

Keyonna Summers may be reached at or (727) 445-4153.

If you go

What: Antiques & Uniques

Where: 530 Alt. U.S. 19 N in Palm Harbor

Contact: (727) 216-6216

Hours: Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Other: Two more former Knot vendors suppose to open the "Mad Hatter General Store" next door to Antiques & Uniques next month.

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