Marvin Ray and Ronald French are celebrating 50 years of the Elephant’s Foot Antiques shop.
Libby Volgyes/The Coastal Star
By Jane Smith
At The Elephant’s Foot Antiques shop, the customer is not only the king but often the educator.
“We learn from our customers,” said Marvin Ray, co-owner and president. “Collectors are the experts.”
Ray came to Florida for a two-week vacation 48 years ago and ended up buying a 2-year-old consignment shop in Palm Beach. When he bought the 900-square-foot store, he was managing a computer keypunch department in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The Elephant’s Foot Antiques shop, marking its 50th year, sits in the former Ranch’s Drug Store in West Palm Beach. It has 6,500 square feet of display space with a parking lot on the north side that it shares with a tenant, the Rhythm Café.
The parking lot attracted Ray to buy the building in 1993. Convenient parking is important to customers, he said. Plus, he said, it was the only building for sale in the Antique Row area at the time.
The shop had been in West Palm Beach for 15 years when Ray took on a partner, Ronald French. He was a nursing home administrator, saying, “I gave up old people for old furniture.”
May and French buy what they like and hope their customers like it, too. “Right now, the retro look is in,” French said. That means traditional furniture is doing better than the painted pieces that had been selling well.
The variety of merchandise they carry has allowed the shop to survive the lean years when the real estate market collapsed. They sell antique furniture and quality reproductions. In addition, the shop also offers crystal stemware, chandeliers and candelabras, mirrors, lamps and artwork.
The most expensive item in their shop is a 12-foot-wide Georgian breakfront china cabinet that dates to about 1780. The mahogany piece is priced at $69,000.
The shop has two full-time employees: Terry Watts, manager, and Bobby Franano, sales associate. During the season, all four work on the floor.
Ray and French are storytellers, too. The shop got its name from the previous owner who had an elephant’s foot umbrella stand in her hall. As a child, all her unwanted games, toys and other items went into it. Thus, the Elephant’s Foot Antiques shop offers one person’s unwanted items that soon will be another person’s treasures.
The Elephant’s Foot Antiques, 3800 S. Dixie Highway, 832-0170; 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, until Oct. 31, then 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; closed during August; www.theelephantsfootantiques.com.
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