Sweet Home Antiques

For the last year and a half I’ve been popping over to Pine Mountain, Georgia to feed/fuel my love of antiques.  I will forever be in the debt of my friend, Nadine for taking me over there for the first time in the Fall of 2013.  That's Nadine with Dawn, the store manager of Sweet Home Antiques.

 Over this last year and a half I’ve shared countless pieces that I’ve found at Sweet Home Antiques.  Many of you have sent me emails asking if I’d share the entire store and the tent sale so here I am getting around to that.  As I share the eye candy, I’d like to also share the store and the story of how the owners of Sweet Home Antiques and Sweet Home Plantation came to be those owners.

Recently, I sat down with Bruce one of the owners and just ask him to tell me the story.  It jut might be a story I'd like to hear him tell me over and over!

The one thing I have pondered was how they came to settle in of all places in Pine Mountain, Georgia.  They moved to Atlanta around 1983/84.  Bruce was a labor relations attorney and Phillip was and still is a physician.  Their passion was touring old homes and buildings.  This led to to a desire to find a home that they could restore in and around the Atlanta area.  On a visit to Callaway Gardens they looked around the area realizing it wasn’t out of the realm to make a commute into Atlanta from Pine Mountain.  Looking around for a property they found Sweet Home Plantation. The current owner at the time, might not have wanted to sell but his wife had not taken a liking to country living so the move back to Florida was inevitable for him.  Ultimately, Bruce and Phillip did make Sweet Home Plantation their home.  They see themselves as caretakers not as owners.

At that point the they hadn’t thought about the antique business.  There were many things in the home that they didn’t need or couldn’t use and opted to sell those.  They got a booth at what is now Old Chipley Market and began to fill it with a host of antiques.  Not English antiques yet but that would come later. 

 Today, I see Pine Mountain as a bustling small town with many great businesses including restaurants.  Many times I’ve tried to imagine what the town was like when they moved there.  Bruce reports that the town was grim, many vacant buildings and so forth.  Bruce had acquired his real estate license shortly after he moved there.  He was asked to list the building that is now Sweet Home Antiques so they bought it!  They moved their booth into their now store front and an antique business was born!

I had wondered how they came to be interested in English Antiques. Bruce reported that the market determined what types of antiques they had.

Join me later in the week to read more of their story.  The focus will be on their Tent Sale and how that came to be.

If you would like please visit their websites, Sweet Home Plantation and Sweet Home Antiques.

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