Two Springs Stores Are Changing Hands
Two Springs delis are getting new leases on life, with both being given opportunities to carry on although one is passing out of the family that founded it more than five decades ago.
An “angel buyer” is in contract to buy the Springs General Store, Kristi Hood, who runs the deli and catering business there, said this week. Ms. Hood was set to close up shop when her current lease expires in May, but said the purchasers, whom she did not name, would like her to stay.
Just down the street, Lenny Weyerbacher and Barbara Barnes LaMonda are selling the Barnes Country Market to Jim Winthrop. The couple have run the market for about 18 years since Ms. LaMonda’s parents, Clarence and Dorothy Barnes, who ran it for 38 years, retired.
The owners of the popular general store and the land on which it sits, Mike and Jan Collins of Springs, had the site on the market for some time. They and Ms. Hood had been unable to agree on terms of a new lease, and community members, many of whom enjoy stopping in for breakfast, lunch, or a coffee, and sitting on the store’s porch just like Springs residents did back in the day, had been buzzing about the potential loss of the store as a community gathering place.
The general store has changed little over the years, having been built in the Greek Revival style in 1844 with stone and shingles transported by Phineus Edwards from Connecticut. Later, David Dimon Parsons owned the store, which served as the hamlet’s post office from 1849 to 1925. He lived in the upstairs apartment.
When Dan Miller was the general store’s proprietor for several decades beginning in the 1940s, Jackson Pollock used to stop in, once exchanging one of his Abstract Expressionist paintings for groceries. The piece now hangs in a museum in Paris.
Overlooking Accabonac Creek and Pussy’s Pond across the street, the property is in the Springs Historic District. Its exterior is therefore protected from significant change, but its interior, which maintains the layout and feel of an old general store, is not.
Ms. Hood said Monday that the buyers-in-contract, who are also purchasing an adjacent vacant lot, wished to remain anonymous, but had stepped up to invest in the property because they wanted to see the store’s community-center role continue. “It’s really wonderful,” she said. “We look forward to really making this place grow and thrive.”
The Barnes store, on Fireplace Road, is not far from the studio and residence of another of Springs’s famous Abstract Expressionists, Willem de Kooning, who was a customer and was friendly with Ms. Barnes and her late husband. The artist gave one painting to “the lady of the store,” Mr. Weyerbacher said this week, and another to Mr. Barnes for a granddaughter on the way. Both were sold by the family decades ago.
Mr. Weyerbacher said he plans to enjoy fishing and skiing in his retirement, after a long string of years in which he opened the store daily, greeting an early morning contingent of Springs folk soon after 4 a.m.
“I got there at 10 after 4 when I didn’t shave; a quarter after when I did,” he said.
Mr. Winthrop, who lives in Clearwater Beach, was a part owner of Brent’s General Store in Amagansett with his brother, David Winthrop, and Artie Seekamp, and is now striking out on his own.
The Barnes store closed its doors on Sunday for about 10 days while some things are revamped. But it will remain much the same, said Mr. Winthrop. He will be doing more in-store cooking and will offer freshly baked morning staples. He plans to extend the store’s hours into the evening. The opening time will be bright and early, he said, though perhaps not as early as 4 a.m.