May 17, 2009

Picture-frame maker hopes to revive landmark Gloucester country storeBy Mark St. John EricksonDailyPress.com

The first time John Warren walked into the old Pointer Brothers store in the Guinea section of Gloucester, he felt like he’d stumbled into something special.

Though the original sales and display area on the first floor had been cut up by a maze of later walls — and the large opening in the center of second-floor mezzanine had been boarded shut — he still saw such evocative signs of the landmark building’s 105-year past that he couldn’t help thinking about its potential.

Less than half a year later, Warren and his wife, Heidi, have set up shop in a largely reborn, architecturally eye-grabbing space that they hope will regain its former place as a hub of daily life in the surrounding, still mostly rural community.

Part frame shop, part gift shop and part recreated general store, their experiment in historic preservation and modern-day business is still a work in progress, he says.

But after weeks of renovation and a busy May 2 opening, the steady stream of curious residents who’ve stopped by on their way down old Guinea Road has given them plenty of reasons to feel hopeful.

“This is just such an incredible building. Where can you find a retail location where the building itself is such an important draw?” says Warren, who moved to Gloucester from Suffolk last year.

“And something else we’re finding out about is the sense of history and ownership that the local folks have with this store. We want to encourage that. It’s a responsibility. And we want to give them plenty of reasons to come in and hang out.”

Constructed in 1904, the Pointer Brothers store was just one of many general stores that dotted the rural countryside of Gloucester between the town of Hayes on the main highway and — as the local describe it — the “Big Circle” of roads that loops around the low-lying neck of tidal land known as Guinea.

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