After 25 years, a State College-area antiques dealer could be looking for new home
Leslee Asbury apologized as tears began to well in her eyes during a more than hourlong conversation, even taking a moment to say she didn’t cry at her father’s funeral.
The stalwart supporter of Apple Hill Antiques reflected on her nearly two decades volunteering with the business and the weight of her day-to-day responsibilities at the antique and vintage collectibles cooperative, which could have its days numbered.
The group of nearly four dozen dealers at the shop, Asbury said, is “family.”
“It means everything (to me). It’s the only shop of its kind in State College,” Asbury said. “... It is an integral part of the financial stability of so many older dealers, especially those that are retired and in their 70s and 80s. It means to me that it’s terribly importantly to keep the business going — even if it has to be ultimately at a different location — because there’s just so much riding on this for the community.”
The State College Food Bank plans to buy the building at 169 Gerald St. after outgrowing its home of the past eight years. The building, owned by Texas-based Kohl Property Funds, has housed Apple Hill for 25 years.
Apple Hill has no paid employees. Its 45 small business owners pay rent monthly to owners Roger and Jan Snyder, who operate as de facto managers. They remit any money from sales back to dealers, minus 10% for sales tax and a commission fee.
The business, the Snyders wrote in a letter read by Asbury, generates no profit.
Gary Discavage, a dealer for about six years, wrote a letter asking the food bank to walk away from the building and “find another place to call home.”
Asbury, a 76-year-old retired accountant and educator, said she was “blindsided” by the planned sale. The 87-year-old Snyders do not intend to retire and have been long been supporters of the food bank.
“Putting 45 small business owners out of business and depriving the public of a place where they have come to know, patronize, and love for over 25 years is not the way the Food Bank should show its concern for the residents of State College and greater Centre County,” the Snyders wrote. “Given our personal commitment and the generosity of Apple Hill Antiques, it is unconscionable to us that the Food Bank would show such insensitivity and treat us with such disrespect.”
The Centre Daily Times shared the Snyders’ letter with food bank Executive Director Allayn Beck and board President Adam Fleming. The organization’s top leaders wrote in a statement that they sympathize with Apple Hill, whose owners and dealers “care deeply about the community and all the stakeholders affected by this transition.”
The business’ lease is set to expire at the end of April. The food bank will honor the end dates for each of the building’s leased spaces, Beck wrote in an email.
Renovations are expected to begin in summer 2023. The building is more than three times larger than the food bank’s current home at 1321 S. Atherton St. The nonprofit was looking for a new building for more than a year.
”It was never our objective to displace anyone in the challenging search to relocate our organization. Nevertheless, we are aware of the inconvenience of moving, and we sympathize with the challenges of disruption. We are hopeful that any organization or business going through a relocation will find benefits to the transition, and we wish them success in the future,” Beck and Fleming wrote in a statement Thursday. “We are also hopeful that, with the substantial advanced notice provided by the announcement, we have maximized the opportunity for all tenants to make arrangements for the future.”
The food bank, Beck and Fleming wrote, is “ready and willing” to work with tenants to facilitate a smooth transition. Discavage asked for the nonprofit’s decision-makers to publicly vote on the transaction.
He, along with several others at Apple Hill, aren’t ready to say goodbye.
“We will not go silent into the good night,” Discavage said.
This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 8:21 AM.