Village Squire, 1976-02, Page 4Squire Gifts in Goderich made use of an old band shell to make a unique gift shop. This year, for the first
time, the shop is open all year round.
SQUIRE GIFTS:
A late night
idea still going
strong 11 years
later.
2, VILLAGE SQUIRE/FEBRUARY 1976
In the wintery blasts of snow off Lake
Huron it looks a little forlorn and out of place,
like a palm tree in the snow.
Most• people probably think of the little
glass -walled shop of Squire Gifts in Goderich
as a summer place. Indeed it really has been.
Most years the shop has been open from
spring through to Christmas and then closed
for the rest of the year. But this year, for the
first time, the shop has stayed open all year
round.
It looks like the kind of place that would die
once the tourist season ends but back' in its
first season in 1%5 Bert and Winnifred
Squire discovered that, yes tourists are an
important part of the business, but local
people also make up a big potential business.
As an experiment that first year they stayed
open until Christmas and quickly found the
Month of December was the best month they
had all year. Ever since then they've been
staying open until Christmas then closed, but
this year they decided to try to extend the
season just a bit longer.
Squire Gifts is an example of people
thinking ahead. The couple decided they
needed to plan something to keep them
occupied after Bert retires from his job with
Dominion Road Machinery Company. Retire-
ment is still a time away yet, but the business
has been going strong for 10 years.
• Back in 1965 they had the land the present
shop sits on and they had the idea for Ithe
shop but they didn't know just what they were
going to do for the building itself. Bert was on
Goderich town council at the time and one of
council's decision was to have the old band
shell in the park at the Square in the centre of
town torn down. One night he was lying in
bed and suddenly sat straight up and told his
wife that he knew what they were going to do, -
they'd take the band shell, move it to their
property and make it into the store.
The bandshell was particularly apt for the
shop because it was built in 1927 by Robert
Standish, a relative of Mr. Squire. So in April
1965 they moved the bandshell and began
renovations. The roof, floor and pillars
remained but a basement was put under it,
the walls on the south, east and north were
glassed in and other sides were bricked in.
The idea at first was to sell all Canadian
merchandise but once they opened they found
they couldn't get enough Canadian things
and had to branch out. That was, of course,
before the boom in Canadian arts, crafts and
giftware. It was also before the tremendous
upsurge in the number of small shops.
Squire Gifts then was a very unique shop in
the Goderich area, depending entirely on
quality giftware sales. There were plenty of
places selling cheap souvenirs and there were
other places that sold quality giftware.as a
sideline, but the shop gtood alone as an outlet
solely for quality giftware. Today, for
instance, there's Royal Daulton, Wedge-
wood, expensive crystral as well as quality
Eskimo carvings, and many other native and
imported pieces. -
Ten years has given the Squires a chance to
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