Day Trips
By Gerald E. McLeod, Fri., March 22, 2002
Discovery's From the Past in Gonzales recycles old buildings one piece at a time. The architectural antiques store gives new life to building components that might otherwise be destined for the city landfill.
"We do the same as [some other architectural salvage businesses], only we have more of it," says Suzanne Kittel, who owns the shop along with her husband, Brad. The Kittels spent 15 years in Austin rehabilitating old houses before they moved to Gonzales five years ago. "We needed room to spread out," Suzanne says with a laugh.
And spread out they did. The Kittels have a storefront that takes up the better part of a block plus three warehouses for a total of 100,000 square feet of storage space. That makes them, if not the largest, then one of the largest used building materials dealers in the Southwest.
The space is filled from floor to rafters with an amazing collection of flooring, beams, light fixtures, and assorted hardware. The store stocks more than 3,000 doors. The collection of antique doorknobs alone numbers in the hundreds of styles and includes pieces that are as rare as they are unusual. "I used to see glass doorknobs and hardly notice them," she says. "Now I see a thing of beauty."
The beveled and colored glass of old windows look like rows of works of art leaning against almost every surface. The Kittels' collection of windows includes nearly every shape, size, and color. Suzanne marvels at the craftsmanship that goes into the construction of each piece. "Anything old has a style all its own," she says.
Dusty boards are stacked like dinosaur bones in a warehouse down the street. Many of the beams will be cleaned and polished to look like new for the construction of a new house. Some of the most sought-after floor planks are made of long-leaf pine. Once predominant in construction of homes in the South, the trees went extinct in the 1930s due to its popularity as a building material. "As old wood ages," Suzanne says, "it takes on a distinctive look that you can't get at Home Depot."
Unfortunately, we live in a disposable society, she says: "A lot of buildings come down just for the sake of building something new and they don't have the character of the old buildings." Fortunately, many builders are incorporating antique materials in new home construction. "We're in the recycling business," she says.
Most of the mantels, signs, plumbing fixtures, and other materials come from the U.S., but Mexico and Europe offer a steady supply of used building parts. A lot of the old wood comes from Texas, but most of the best-crafted pieces come from east of the Mississippi River, Suzanne says. "Texas is still pretty new. An old house in Texas is 100 years old and in the Eastern U.S. [the houses] can be 200 years or more," she says.
The Kittels have a network of shoppers around the country who bring them used building materials from auctions and demolition sales. "The fun part is looking for merchandise," Suzanne says.
Suzanne, Brad, and their 15-year-old son Adam have fallen in love with the small-town ambience of Gonzales. When they found the vacant stores a block north of the county courthouse, the Kittels discovered much more. Within an hour's drive of Austin (where the couple still owns property), the town also offers a rich history that they find invigorating. "The town has great old houses here," Suzanne says, "and we're old house people."
For relaxation, Brad likes to get away on weekends and play paint ball. Suzanne likes to tag along to out-of-town tournaments to indulge her favorite pastime -- antiquing. Yes, a woman who spends 40 hours a week working in an antique shop goes shopping in other antique shops for fun on her days off. The fun part of shopping for antiques is that it is a personal mission, she says.
Suzanne looks forward to going to small towns and finding an antique shop that she hasn't been to before. Her favorite discoveries have been in Brenham and Cuero, but, she adds, San Antonio is a great antiquing town. "Everybody has their own taste and what they're after," she says.
Discovery's From the Past has something to appeal to just about any antique searcher. Besides building materials, they have books, personal items, furniture, and frame pictures, along with a menagerie of odds and ends. At 409 St. Francis, the store is half a block off of U.S. 183-Business. For information, call 888/686-2966 or 830/672-2428. For information on Gonzales, call 830/672-6532 or visit www.gonzalestexas.com.
563rd in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of Day Trips 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
