HALIFAX -- McLellan Antiques & Restoration has been a fixture of Agricola Street in Halifax for the past two decades where customers have been greeted by the familiar face of owner Jim McLellan.
"It's been a good 25 year run," said McLellan. "It has gone by faster than I would have imagined but here we are."
Originally from California, McLellan moved to the Maritimes in 1995 where he opened up shop with big dreams of turning the small storefront into a collection of relics from a bygone era.
"In the 90s antiques were hot," McLellan added. "People were antiquing all the time."
However, McLellan says over the past decade the market for antiques has plummeted. "I'm pretty sure it's generational. Nobody wants to have what they had when they were growing up. Whatever your parents had you don't want to have."
With a dwindling customer base, McLellan says the antique portion of his business was no longer profitable. He believes it's a sign of the modern day, a disposable era where items are regularly replaced rather than cherished and passed down through generations.
"Antiques are really your best example of recycling. People will go out and buy new furniture and spend good money doing it but within years, very few years, it's often trash."
As one of the peninsula's last remaining antique stores, the small two-storey building has also been sold to a developer – another part of the area's identity which will soon be lost.
McLellan says he'll continue doing furniture restoration in his retirement, but is ready to turn the page on a new chapter. However, he worries about the fate of family heirlooms and vintage pieces as the attitude to antiques evolves.
"I think in another generation it will turn around again but not during my career."
McLellan Antiques & Restoration will officially close at the end of August.
