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by Frank D. Quattrone
Although most Americans have heard of the California Gold Rush, I’ll bet that very few know who accidentally discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in January of 1848. It was carpenter and sawmill operator James Wilson Marshall, a one-time resident of Lambertville, New Jersey. Marshall’s discovery, ironically, did nothing to improve his meager personal fortune, but it precipitated a worldwide migration to “The Golden State” in hopes of striking it rich.
Today, Lambertville honors Marshall by preserving his boyhood home at 60 Bridge Street, on the National and New Jersey Registers of Historic Places, with meticulous room re-creations filled with period furniture and exhibits celebrating Lambertville’s history. Fittingly, the Marshall home is now the headquarters of the Lambertville Historical Society.
For a small town whose population lies just shy of 4,000, Lambertville has a pretty rich history, which includes our country’s first president. Well, at the time he was only the general leading America’s fledgling forces against the British Empire. His army once encamped along Bridge Street. He slept at Holcombe Farmstead on North Main Street. And he crossed the ice-clogged Delaware River just below the town on Christmas Day 1776.
The farmstead is now the Holcombe-Jimison Farmstead Museum, dedicated to the agricultural heritage of Hunterdon County from the eighteenth through twentieth centuries. But Lambertville owes its renown and magical lure mostly to its lovingly preserved Federal townhouses and Victorian homes, its charming mom-and-pop shops, its thriving arts and antiques scene, its delightful river views, more than forty diverse restaurants, cafes, and coffee shops, its friendly people, and its strong sense of community.
In various articles, Travel & Leisure has named Lambertville “one of America’s favorite [and quirkiest] towns.” USA Today dubbed it one of the most picturesque towns in New Jersey. Better yet, Forbes magazine recently declared it “one of America’s prettiest towns.” And since at least the 1980s, Lambertville has been celebrated—by The Travel Channel, by VisitNJ.org, and by collectors in the know — as “The Antiques Capital of New Jersey.” With countless highly regarded antiques shops—not to mention more than a dozen art galleries, many featuring working artists—it’s not hard to fathom why.
Perhaps best typifying the spirit of the local antiques scene is the People’s Store Antiques Center, located at 28 North Union Street. Established in 1839 but moving into high gear about sixty years ago, People’s Store hosts forty dealers on four floors, featuring mid-century modern, vintage industrial, antique bronzes, garden statuary, primitives, estate jewelry, vintage clothing and textiles, architectural objects, art, paintings, stemware, barware, fine antiques, painted and upholstered furniture, and European antiques, as well as working artists’ studios. According to amiable James Castelli, the vice president of retail operations, the center’s cutting-edge pieces have lured many designers for movie sets and TV shows. “Our dealers are professional antique dealers, interior designers, professional artists, and offer almost everything needed for any environment or period setting. We have supplied many pieces for TV shows like Madam Secretary, Louie, and Gotham. In the past, we partnered with DIY network and HGTV, for Stone House Revival show, where Jeff Devlin and his team work with homeowners to help restore old stone homes and create modern living spaces inside them using pieces from our stores.”
The featured designer for The People’s Store is David Teague of America Antiques & Design. For twenty years, Teague has provided antiques, art, and concept pieces for Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, J. Crew, Anthropologie, Donna Karan, Vera Wang, and Martha Stewart, and his design company has been a major provider of props for motion pictures, television studios, fashion photoshoots, and the music industry.
Castelli provides another reason for shopping at The People’s Store. “Buying vintage is better for the environment. The People’s Store is the ‘One-Stop-Shop’ for all your home design needs. If you buy just what you love, and pick up pieces that scream to your soul, you'll end up with a room you love, even with one piece at a time. Unless you’re creating a period-style environment, we suggest not being afraid to mix the eras. If you love it, mix it in and it will work. The various colors, forms, shapes and textures will be a pleasure to see and will keep your room interesting and more personal. And, most importantly, you’re recycling and reusing something from the past.”
Everyday people as well as aficionados and media types have been patronizing Lambertville and The People’s Store for years. Store Manager Evelyn Gordon, herself a dealer and manager of the center’s vendors, has been in the business since she first sold antiques at local flea markets at the age of twelve. Her parents, also in the business, tried to discourage her, but to no avail. She says, “I just love the town and the treasures you’ll find here from day to day. I feel a connection to the architecture, the arts scene, the friendly, supportive people. I lived here thirty years ago and I’m in the process of moving back.”
Gordon describes The People’s Store as “a pleasant step back into the past, a bit of the olden times. There’s such a comfort level here.” She says that many people have been shopping here for much of her thirty-five-year tenure at the store. “People come to Lambertville for lunch and then come here or come here and then stay for dinner. Our store has such interesting flavors.”
Speaking of flavors, here lies another major attraction of Lambertville: its robust dining scene. If you can’t find it here, it’s not likely you will anyplace else. Where else in a town this size—and we’re not talking about the great restaurants that draw visitors to neighboring New Hope, just across the charming steel truss bridge spanning the Delaware—can you find, within little more than one square mile, the following?
Among many others, contemporary American restaurants like Brian’s, Anton’s at the Swan, and Lambertville House Restaurant; French/European-flavored D’Floret; Aztlan Mexican Grill;; Mexican-Peruvian restaurant El Thule; More Than Q Barbeque; Ota-ya Japanese Restaurant; Marhaba, serving Middle Eastern fare; Italian Cucina; The Dubliners Irish bar and pub; Homestead Farm Market: cocktail bar the Boat House; Jess’s Juice Bar; refreshing stops like Owowcow Creamery, for hand-crafted organic ice cream treats, and Lambertville Trading Company, the family-owned coffee bar where you can even get a coffee ice cube (!); plus three of the finest restaurants in the region—Hamilton’s Grill Room (steakhouse/seafood); and my two personal favorites, Lambertville Station Restaurant, the historic, popular resort offering guests everything from standard and deluxe accommodations overlooking the river to diverse dining options, both alfresco and indoors; and the Broadmoor Restaurant, where acclaimed Chef Alex Cormier plies his culinary legerdemain to European/Mediterranean standouts.
And on a steamy August afternoon, my wife and I happened upon the two-year-old family-owned upstart Liv & Charlie’s … Real Food, offering some of the tastiest breakfast and lunch items you’ll find anywhere. Dining outdoors, we watched wide-eyed visitors enjoying Lambertville as locals walked their dogs or rode their bicycles along the bustling yet leisurely Union Street vibe.
That vibe includes other antiques havens, including A Touch of the Past; Funk & Junk; Mill House Antiques; Bridge Street Antiques; Peter Wallace Antiques; Klines Court Antiques; James Curran Antiques & Restoration; and Golden Nugget Antique Flea Market, open three days a week, where guests hope to find some unexpected if modest treasure.
When asked why Lambertville has become such a magnet for practitioners and aficionados of the scene, working artist/designer Johanna Furst, an Allentown native who now lives in the town, said: “It all begins with how beautiful Lambertville is to visit. Artists and antiques dealers are naturally attracted to beauty. Personally, I’m attracted to the architecture.” Working on the third floor of The People’s Store for the past year, Furst finds her studio “one of the dreamiest settings I’ve ever seen.” The walls are bursting with the vivid colors of her portraits, flowers, and animal studies.
Although she also teaches art classes twice a week, offers periodic art workshops, loves working with typography, and designs lamps, T-shirts, and an amazing type of non-rip gift wrap called “Forever Wrap,” Furst’s passion is painting. Several of her original works, some celebrating the beauty of zebras, including “Nightfall,” “The Ceremony,” and “Zebras,” are now, or will soon be, in private homes and galleries in Germany, France, and Switzerland. “The internet [where many of her artworks can be found on www.johannafurst.com] is bringing people together. It’s truly exciting to be shown in international circles.”
The artist, whose sincere passion for the natural world is clearly reflected in her works, is philosophical about the importance of art in today’s fragmented world. “So many people are so out of touch. We’ve forgotten that we need the earth; but does the earth need us? We’re so intuitive. I think intuition is another sense. We’re almost sculpting as we speak to others. We need beauty. We need balance. And art helps to get us there.”
Lambertville has been home to or has attracted artists of every type, including popular 1920s-1930s bandleader/composer Paul Whiteman; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist James Gould Cozzens (Guard of Honor, 1949); New Jersey Poet Laureate Gerald Stern (2000-2002); and celebrated musician/writer James McBride, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for fiction for his novel The Good Lord Bird. It’s also home to contemporary ballet company Roxey Ballet, founded in 1995, and Riverside Symphonia, a professional orchestra now conducted by Mariusz Smolij, which has served the region since 1990.
The town also offers guided walking tours (from April through October), and has hiking trails featuring terrific views of Lambertville, New Hope, and the river. Swan Creek Rowing Club teaches and promotes rowing and water safety. Howell Living History Farm introduces families to live animals and the history of farming. And, behind the Inn at Lambertville Station, Splash Floating Steamboat (with operations temporarily suspended) provides educational and environmental adventures for both school groups and adults.
A visit to Lambertville is to strike gold for visitors hungry for a charming destination, whether it’s to seek out homely or fine antiques or art, to enjoy casual or upscale culinary treats, or just to walk about and enjoy the architecture, unique shopping opportunities, and the smiling faces of a truly contented community.
Frank D. Quattrone is an author, newspaper editor, teacher and freelance writer from Montgomery County who writes about local history, food, art and people.