Carrying the Torch: The Holmes Store, a Century-Old Fixture, Awaits Its Next Keeper.
The Holmes Store Is Thriving—And for Sale.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Ironbound Restaurant – Inn – Gatherings.
NORTHEAST HARBOR—One of downtown Northeast Harbor’s fixtures, The Holmes Store, is for sale. The store has been in Northeast Harbor proper for more than a century with Peggy Richardson as its latest owner and custodian.
Here’s the thing: the business is for sale, but it’s also still thriving, which isn’t the norm for a brick and mortar clothing store in the United States.
“Last year was my best year ever,” Richardson said. “From three years prior to this year, each year we grew.”
Even though Richardson is selling down merchandise this summer, the store is still thriving despite the competition with online sales and uncertain financial times for some.
She thinks there’s a key reason for that. “The community loves this store. It’s been here in this location for more than 100 years.”
In those years, the store that sells classic apparel, footwear and accessories has been central to the community, a place to shop, yes, but also a gathering spot and a place to connect with others. People catch up. They share news. They tell each other their stories.
“I think the pendulum has swung,” Richardson said about shopping in person rather than shopping online.
People want to see people, to buy from people, to support neighbors when possible, and to have a fellow human wait on them, show them items, allow them to try items on, instead of ordering, hoping the piece works and fits correctly and then having to pack it all back in a box and ship it back if it isn’t the right size.
She’s definitely not selling because the store isn’t doing well. She’s selling for a more personal reason, she said.
“I want to spend more time with family. They’re all out of state so that means travel,” Richardson said.
Family, community, friends are all part of what Peggy Richardson is about.
“This is my twelfth year of owning the store and running it,” she said. “I’m here all day every day that we’re open.”
That’s pretty much how it’s been since she bought the store from her boss, Randy Merchant. She’d worked for Merchant, owner of Merchant Needham & Associates insurance agency. He’d purchased the building during a foreclosure auction. He purchased the Holmes Store’s inventory at auction at well. It all took Richardson by surprise.
One day, Merchant called Richardson and told her, “Come over to Northeast.”
“I thought, ‘That’s weird.’” She laughed, remembering.
When they met up at work, they drove down to the other end of Main Street together.
“He said, ‘I’ve bought the Holmes Store and the building and I want you to buy the business and run it,’” Richardson recalled. “Thunder bolt.”
She was shocked, but she was also intrigued and she told her husband, Peter, about the idea and the conversation. “We thought, ‘Well, why not?’ I jumped in with both feet.”
She said it was a big change to own and run a store.
“I flew by the seat of my pants for a while until I figured it out. People were patient with me,” she said.
In recent history, the store has been run by Alfred “Buster” James, Mary James, and Anne Tucker Gray.
According to old newspaper reports, it had originally been at another Main Street spot in the beginning of the 1900s and was moved to the corner of Sea and Main in 1914. It has been a well loved store by many seasonal residents.
The store has been for sale since last fall, but there hasn’t been a great deal of serious inquiry.
That worries Richardson a bit because as a lifelong resident of Mount Desert Island and caretaker of this bit of the island’s history, its continuation is important to her. That’s because the community is important to her.
“I would really like to thank the community here in Northeast Harbor and the island in general for supporting me all these years. It’s been a privilege carrying the torch of the store,” she said. “I just hope I find another one to do so, too. It’s getting a little bare here. I just need someone to take the torch.”
For inquiries about purchasing the store, you can email Peggy Richardson at theholmesstore@gmail.com
To visit its website, click here.
The store is located at 114 Main St, Northeast Harbor.
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