Last Days of Aptos’ Village Fair

By Noel Smith

For the past fifty years the Village Fair (aka Aptos Apple Barn originally the Hihn apple packing shed built around 1891), has served as a treasure house of memories in the form of antiques, oddities and the hard-to find. Today there are 12 dealers that are there in the business of selling the artifacts of history, the recent, the old, and the almost forgotten.

However, in about six months these dealers will all have to find another place or another way to do business. As the dream of a new Aptos Village begins to become reality, changes that start with the closing of the Aptos Post Office Jumps as the dirt is moved away and the property is flattened in preparation for the construction to come, the Village Fair will be emptied in preparation for the building’s restoration.

Today, walking through the large open spaces that house these treasures from the past, I saw furniture, china, silverware, paintings and figurines that I recognized from when I grew up in the Midwest over 60 years ago. It is truly a trip back in time. Oak furniture, oiled and burnished, glistens under the period floor and table lamps. Knick-knacks and figurines dot the cupboards, desks and end tables that sit between the small and large wooden dining tables with their sturdy straight and bow-back chairs waiting to be sat upon.

After these last few months are over, these vistas of antiques all in one place will only be a memory. This 18,000 square foot collective is the last bastion in this part of the world devoted to just antiques and with so many dealers each sharing their individual interests and expertise in one place.

One of these dealers, Sharon Burnam said, “There is no other place that has space enough and that we could afford. It is truly a unique situation for all of us and one that can’t be replaced.” Some of the dealers will be retiring and selling their collection; others will continue to do business using the Internet while having to find somewhere to store their merchandise.

Customers who today can go to one place, the Village Fair in Aptos, to see, touch, try and to shop for antique furniture, china, silverware and rugs or for old technology such as cameras, telephones and muzzle loading rifles, will have to roam the internet for descriptions and photographs that they hope truly represent the item they are looking for.

What was the center of the Aptos Village apple industry is to become the latest in the chain of New Leaf Community Markets. Looking at the Village Fair/Apple Barn building as it is today, it will need a lot of renovation from a 19th century packing house, a 20th century antique collective, to a 21st century upscale anchor store for the new Aptos Village retail/residential development.

We talked to Matthew Thompson of Thacher & Thompson, Architects for details about the structure. “It is actually three buildings,” Thompson said, “With the first one built in the 1890s and the last on built in the 1920s. There has been a lot added to it in partitions and stalls by the owners and tenants, which will be removed in order to get back to the original barn. Above the false ceilings are marvelous wooden beams and trusses made of local fir, which will again become visible. The roof will be replaced because it has structurally deteriorated. Much of the building doesn’t even rest on a proper foundation, just on posts sunk into the ground.”

After a new foundation has been built and the building structurally braced, the Barn will be moved to its new location at the heart of the new Aptos Village. “The building as restored,” said Thompson, “Will be about 12,000 sq ft. in size. It will become part of a 5,500 sq ft addition, which will total 17,500 sq ft for the New Leaf Community Market. Just in front of that building complex, which is in the center of the Village, will be the Village Green, a public gathering place for from 20, to 200, to 2,000 people – depending on the configuration – for public events. It will be a great place for the Aptos Parade.”

When asked about the features of the old building, Thompson said, “There have been loading docks for horse drawn wagons, for trucks, and even for trains. There was a railroad spur to the building at one time. The sides of the building bear the evidence of sliding doors and access windows that were boarded over or moved as the building’s owners changed its configuration. It bears the marks of its own history.”

“Once the shell has been restored,” Thompson said, “And the building
structurally rebuilt with the infrastructure for electricity, heating and air conditioning installed, it will be up to New Leaf to finish the interior to their standards.”

One feature of the new Aptos Village that Thompson emphasized; it is designed to be a walking neighborhood where people could stroll and feel part of a very special community, Aptos Village.

Unfortunately the opportunity to walk into the Village Fair antique collective to be surrounded by the past will then be gone.

Aptos Village Fair Website: www.villagefair.net