Retailers locating on Highway 50

Not all new store openings take place in Carson City's downtown core or retail malls.

The owners of a couple new stores - Unique Design Showroom and The Antique Mall - believe their specialized inventories will attract shoppers to more remote locations out Highway 50 East.

Unique Design Showroom features home accessories and decorations, while The Antique Mall showcases collectibles, antiques and primitives offered by six separate dealers.

When Gary and Patricia Hunter, owners of Silver State Coffee & Water Service, purchased a pair of commercial buildings at 4949 Highway 50 East about two years ago and moved the business there from Hot Springs Road, they found they had a couple thousand square feet of surplus space.

The idea for Unique Design Showroom, which would offer a selection of decorating accessories for homes or offices, was soon born.

"For just about anyone with any kind of hobby, I think we've got something made especially for them," Gary Hunter said as he pointed out shadow boxes filled with cigar paraphernalia, movie memorabilia or a reproduction RMS Titanic.

"We've got both very nice reproductions and a selection of antiques, like these oak crank telephones. Where else can you go if you need an ore car?"

The swing-open front of a faux juke box concealed a book case. A set of hand-carved wooden chests nested inside each other. A life-sized clown figure vied for attention with a war-bonnetted Indian.

Patricia Hunter is running the store with the assistance of Raynese Wilson, who has been office manager of the water company for two years.

Gary Hunter, meanwhile, still doesn't have enough to do - he's laying plans to open a utility and cargo trailer dealership out front.

Up the hill at Mound House, Bill and Faye Ritenour recently finished remodeling a 4,800-square-foot building to provide a hospitable environment for The Antique Mall.

"I've been in the antique business for 47 years, starting in Pennsylvania and have been in the West for 15 years, mostly in California," Bill Ritenour said. "We came to Carson two years ago and have been setting up shop and getting this building ready."

The Ritenours have their items mainly down the middle of the building, while five other dealers have leased shop space along with walls. Some of the tenant dealers have a history of their own in the area.

"Dawn Rae (Emerson) has had an antique shop in Gardnerville for years," Bill Ritenour said. "And Diane Bradley's space here is a branch of her Fondly Remembered store in Yerington."

The antique mall system means the dealers don't have to constantly man their own operations. The Ritenours and general manager Ruth Hall, a dealer in the mall herself, handle the day-to-day duties and pass the sales receipts on to the tenants.

Bill Ritenour also built a restoration room in the back, where he working on a 100-year-old wheel barrow, a barrel-shaped butter churn and several cabinets.

"My specialty is Hoosier cabinets and oak kitchen cupboards," he said.

While Hall is minding the store and his wife is tending the books, Bill Ritenour frequently is off on buying trips to Ohio, west Virginia, Pennsylvania or Massachusetts.

Then again, he may be on hunting trips. A number of his trophies including a massive elk head hand end the mall's entrance.

"I just got back from Idaho. Next week I'm going to Pennsylvania for wild turkey, white-tail deer and black bear. Those black bear get pretty big in Pennsylvania," he said.

He said he buys his antiques from estate sales or out of private homes, rather than from other dealers. And his inventory is differentiated from other antique dealers in the area because it comes from the eastern states.

The Antique Mall features several fancy wood ranges like one that is finished in a tan enamel, lots of hand carved cabinets, coal miners' and blacksmithing equipment and an area dedicated to tavern items.

And outside, waiting for the right buyers on a half-acre yard, are an Amish horse-drawn runabout and an all-American outhouse.

If You Go

Unique Design Showroom

4949 Highway 50 East

(775) 883-6990

The Antique Mall

10104 Highway 50 East

246-1618