Stores in Tucson aren’t usually known for having only four days of business a month. But at Gather A Vintage Market, collectors of antiques and re-purposed industrial parts do just that, transforming a rustic warehouse space into a sense of home for the beginning of each month.

On the market’s first day of opening each month, locals and even out-of-town collectors will flock outside Gather A Vintage Market’s doors, vying to see the new setup the store endeavors to create differently each monthly showcase. 

“Thursdays are the killer day,” said Tray Gers, the owner of Gather A Vintage Market, describing the elbow-to-elbow crowd. “We’ll have a hundred people plus in line, waiting to get in. The line will be out the gate.” 

Inside, jazzy music and free popcorn are provided as people wander the store, while little bulb lights on strings hanging in the rafters brighten electric vignette displays. Old photographs sit on tables near yellowed pages marked with type-writer sentences, and hues of teal, green, gold, chalk-white and rustic steel splash together in displays of dinnerware and furniture, pulling modernity and antiquity into a sense of timelessness. 

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To follow each month’s theme, a team of 13 vendors, or dealers, collaborate to blend their pieces together into an integrated collection of styled vignettes, challenging themselves to use furniture they’ve displayed before in a different visual way.

“We’ll come in a week before the market and raid each other’s collections,” said Jadel Roe, one of the newer vendors in the Gather A Vintage Market family. “We do this because we want to avoid tunnel vision that comes from ‘Okay I went to this sale and I bought this piece and I’m going to put it here’ [mindset]. It keeps you on your toes, and it keeps you from being lazy.”

Roe joined the market last fall, having lived in France for 12 years before moving to Tucson and originally stockpiling pieces from the French countryside for one of the market’s vendors.

Dee Malvern, one of the earliest vendors to be a part of Gather A Vintage Market, said many pieces in the store came from around the country.

“We’ve gone to sales here in Tucson, and a lot of buying is local, but we’ve also go out of state,” Malvern said. “Like California, Long Beach… and other people in here have traveled to all over, like to the Midwest, Colorado, and Texas. I used to go to France and bring back containers, before 9/11.”

Malvern also said each dealer has their own specialty in setup and that she personally enjoys large scale displays.

“I love setting up the big things, the architectural part of it,” Malvern said, gesturing to a screen door she had set up as a shutter above a display. “I love the big overall picture; the footprint. Like this hay crane with the light fixture. Others are great at doing small stuff. It’s a group effort.”

Locals librarians Kendra Davey, and Kate DeMeester came to the market to experience the new layout and look for small collectibles.

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“We’ve come a couple of times, because she [DeMeester] is obsessed with glassware, and I like to see how they put everything together,” Davey said. “And then she swipes all the little glasses before me. I like to see what colors they put together and the vignettes. They always have a theme and this time it’s obviously Easter, with all the rabbits around.”

While the market drew in plenty of locals, people from out of town also took an interest, stopping in to see one-of-a-kind items, like tables made with trunk tops, or grey lockers made rustically elegant with white paint.

Randy Nederhoff, a newborn ICU physician, came from Albuquerque, New Mexico, originally to visit friends with his wife, Colette, and said they ended up visiting the store upon her suggestion. Nederhoff, having grown up in Iowa, said the industrial elements of the displays remind him of his childhood.

“I like to look at the antique stuff and see if I can recognize what it’s used for,” said Nederhoff, pointing at the hay crane light fixture. “I grew up in on a farm in Iowa, so a lot of this implemented stuff was what part of growing up. I remember using some of these things.” 

Colette Nederhoff, on the other hand, was eager to finally visit the market and wanted inspiration for her home in Albuquerque.

“I’d heard about Gather for a while, and we happened to be in town this weekend,” she said. “The part that I like best about this is that it’s decoratively setup. It’s not just a store with shelves. They have it set up in a way that pushes you to think about how to use pieces in your own home.”

Gers and his wife, Simone, started the market in January 2013, repurposing a former lumberyard, Old Arizona Sash and Door Warehouse, into their dream. Their vision was to create an interactive environment of creativity, fun, and inspiration in the community with their furniture and finds.

Gather a Vintage Market’s next market will be on May 4-7, with store hours being 10a.m.-6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Sunday. More information and remodel projects can be seen on their Facebook page.

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