BRATTLEBORO-After massive water damage forced it to close its doors for nearly 10 months and move from the storefront it called home for more than three decades, Beadniks and its nonprofit educational Bead Museum will formally mark their reopening in their new location in the Hooker-Dunham block at Gallery Walk on Friday, Oct. 3.
A fire last year at the store's former location just down the street set off sprinklers that could not be shut off for at least two hours, releasing devastating amounts of water that drained through the 150-year-old building into the first-floor storefront.
In addition to destroying much of the store's inventory, the flood wiped out artifacts and a library of rare books from the nonprofit Lost Foundation, which "preserved ancient and antique beads and artifacts as a source of education and inspiration for future generations," Robertshaw wrote in a fundraising appeal last year.
A 12-foot phoenix made of fabric scraps salvaged from the old store, made by former employee Maddie Pixley, now hangs triumphantly in the window of Beadniks' new location.
"I thought, 'We're going to rise like the phoenix and we'll just shut down for a little while and clean it up,'" owner Brian Robertshaw said.
Instead, the damage displaced them for 10 months before they quietly reopened on July 1, he said, describing the journey as "kind of surreal."
Fire and water
On Sept. 23, 2024, fire broke out in a fourth-floor apartment at 117–119 Main St., next door to the commercial storefront at 115 Main St., where Beadniks had been a community fixture for 31 years. Though the two blocks are distinct structures, they share a brick façade and a common staircase to the upper floors.
Brattleboro firefighters extinguished the fire, which was contained to the apartment, thanks to the sprinkler system. But when they went to turn shut the system down, they found the controls were behind a locked door in the basement.
In the two hours it took to shut the sprinkler system off, thousands of gallons of water flowed through the 117 Main St. side of the building, into the adjacent 115 Main St. block, and through the floors and ceilings into Beadniks and the bead museum in the basement.
That day at Beadniks, "it was a moderately busy day with people milling about our various tables of beads," recalled Aubergine Evans, the floor manager.
"Our customers were being more observant than both of us," they said, recalling that they were tidying up, looking at the floor for discarded candy or fallen beads. Robertshaw was talking to some customers.
"And suddenly I hear, 'You might want to start moving that table...look!,'" Evans said.
They looked and saw someone just pointing up at the ceiling at a deluge of contaminated water that was the color of "rancid Coca-Cola" after filtering through layers of two old buildings, all the way down to the ground floor and into the basement.
Robertshaw and Evans saw the water filling up the light fixtures.
The crew from Amy's Bakery, Beadniks' neighbor to the south, "abandoned their posts to come in," Evans said.
"They were side by side with me, squeegeeing water out the door. They brought their own buckets and mops just to get it out the door," they added.
"I started panicking, but usually I find the will to say, 'OK, I'll get through this. I've been through things, you know, everybody's safe. Nobody got hurt, right? It's just stuff; we can replace it,'" Robertshaw said.
But "I knew everything was going down into the basement," he added.
That was where the Bead Museum, with "human artifacts across all of our history," some up to thousands of years old, were displayed.
"Some pieces were salvaged," Evans said. "There was water damage specifically on our organics, our textiles, our weaves, our fabrics, because we are more than just a bead museum."
Strength and resilience
In the aftermath of the fire and flooding, the entire electrical system of 115 Main St. was shot, and the ceilings and the floors were compromised. Robertshaw said the property owner was looking at multiple years to rehabilitate the damaged structure and that "the costs were more than the building was worth."
With asbestos and lead paint detected in the 185-year- old building.
So Robertshaw and Evans donned hazmat suits and cleaned everything completely which was very time-consuming and exhausting.
"I was given a short time to basically empty everything out of my store and basement, in the dark, in the dampness, with no heat and no lights. And of course, that's where the outpouring of support, really showed up for us," Robertshaw added.
He has been buoyed by that support, which he described as "just mind boggling."
In addition to the staff from Amy's, "people in the streets were running in and helping move things," Robertshaw said. "People I don't even know, cars, vehicles, boxes, totes, manpower, womanpower - just physical, community power. It was super humbling.
"It didn't cost us much money at all to do the initial move because there were so many hands on."
Robertshaw and Evans spent the winter sorting through the salvaged inventory and property which went into storage at 61Main St., previously part of Shin La, the Korean restaurant next door.
A few members of the Beadniks crew "stuck with us for a short time, and then they dwindled," Robertshaw said, acknowledging that "this was not in the original job description."
"And I was honored that anybody would want to even help, because it was depressing, dark work. We'd open a tote, and there'd be books covered in mold[...]. We had to make lists for insurance, to take pictures. And, my god, it [was] like, endless," he added.
The insurance process wrapped up only last month.
"They were helpful," said Robertshaw said. "The gentleman I was dealing with was a sweetheart. I told him he was an angel for us in the midst of this dark period. He literally would call and check on me."
Pixley, a Beadniks employee when the crisis began, started a crowdfunding campaign for her employer that raised nearly $30,000, an amount raised mostly in small donations.
People would come up to Robertshaw and hand him a small donation or offer their time.
Amy's Bakery continued helping, with Robertshaw grateful to owner Amy Comerchero, who "fed us throughout the whole process."
"I came to tears so many times. I thought nobody even noticed us. After 30 years, I just thought, OK, I'm doing my thing. I'm just blending in. Yeah, if I disappeared, nobody would even know," he added.
Renewed energy
After a Christmas pop-up shop at a Downtown Brattleboro Alliance–organized holiday market in the vacant space vacated by Sam's Outdoor Outfitters, Robertshaw started to evaluate the future.
For starters, he said it became clear that the business would have to find a new space - and he couldn't find one that was suitable.
At the time, "I thought maybe this is a sign that maybe it's time for Beadniks to go its own way and disappear," he said.
Robertshaw said that "after all the dust settled, after the pop up, I could process it all" and only then the "grief and everything started bubbling up."
But by April, he was looking at space in the Hooker-Dunham block, the massive former shoe factory that now provides office, retail, and residential space.
Feeling "renewed energy," Robertshaw said he "prayed hard" about the decision to begin a new chapter for Beadniks.
"What I realized was I felt a loss for Brattleboro," he said. "So many people poured out their hearts about how much they missed [Beadniks], and how it's in the heart of downtown, and how they had come there since they were kids, and now they bring their kids."
With the challenges and losses that downtown had endured, giving up would amount to "another hit to Brattleboro," Robertshaw said.
With almost $30,000 of community donations in the bank, he thought about giving back to Brattleboro something that had brought joy.
It also helped that Beadniks' new landlord, Mark Berman is "super supportive," Robertshaw said.
"When we walked in and we negotiated, it felt like a warm embrace. I knew that this was going to be our future home," Robertshaw said.
The old store took about 2,000 square feet, plus 1,000 square feet in the basement for the Bead Museum. The new space at 2,000 square feet, is "more intimate...it's a little easier," he said.
Rebuilding, day by day
Re-creating Beadniks "took a lot of physical labor, of sore bodies [and] days that would demand so much from our bodies that we would wake up the next day so sore we could barely get out of bed," Evans said.
"I'm not 23 anymore," Robertshaw noted.
The workload was daunting. They still had to move huge pieces of furniture in addition to the merchandise.
But, Evans observed, "Brian and I are very similar in that we are both stubborn. We have the work ethic of a team of horses! So, I held Brian accountable to the mission and reason Beadniks was ever made."
For his part, Robertshaw said he is "doubtful Beadniks would have made it" without Evans's support.
"They really were instrumental in all this," he said, calling his floor manager "a huge support and workhorse and companion through this whole process."
" We are a team, not a perfect team...but we're in this together," Evans said.
Robertshaw said that despite the duo's struggles - and with the help they were able to hire, thanks to the crowdfunding reserves - "we just kept going day by day, and finally, kind of got over the hill and things started to gain momentum."
The business of prayer
Robertshaw, who started his bead business on Martha's Vineyard in 1989 with $50 from a food service tip jar, reflected on the store and why it matters.
"The big thing for me is the history of beads," he said, noting that "humans and beads have a long relationship" of approximately 150,000 years.
Beading, he said, "is considered the first form of art, or the first form of abstract thinking - to adorn yourself and recognize yourself as an individual."
Beads were often associated with shamanistic and funerary and just talismanic elements. "Later, as languages developed and civilizations developed, the word for bead came out and was winnowed down by the 5th century as 'bid,' [which] came from 'bid' or 'bidden.'"
"This was Anglo Saxon [and] meant prayer, or to pray, and a beadsman or beadswoman was a person who prayed for another soul," Robertshaw added.
He said that after he "hit a midlife crisis" in his 40s, he revisited the history and found a new sense of purpose in selling beads.
"What is a bead? Oh, it's a prayer. And I embraced that and realized, Oh, my gosh - I'm in the business of prayers and spiritual tools," he said. "And so I often think of Beadniks as an apothecary of prayers, rather than just a bead store."
Evans likened the reopening to "such a beautiful and full flower of joy that was necessarily tinged by the thorns of grief."
Robertshaw said that he's committing to a three-year plan to get the store back up and running, then "see what happens."
"And hopefully somebody else, the next generation, will want to take it on," he said.
"The love bubble that is Brattleboro is the interaction between the public and all the shops, arts, community programs and events that make Brattleboro a special place," Robertshaw said. "And Beadniks was boosted by this appreciation, happiness, and love."
* * *
Beadniks, at 143 Main St., Brattleboro, will formally mark its reopening - and its 33rd anniversary - during Gallery Walk on Friday, Oct. 3 from 5 to 8 p.m., with live musicians, refreshments, and more.A featured guest includes old-fashioned tattoo artist, Paxton Angell (Paxhanpokes), a Brattleboro native who now works in Brooklyn doing "old-school-style" tattoos.
For more information, visit beadniksvt.com.
This Arts item by Victoria Chertok was written for The Commons.