Art in the Age Founder Steven Grasse to Open Tamworth Lyceum
With ardent aims and buoyant spirits, we are proud to announce the newest project from Art in the Age founder, Steven Grasse…The Tamworth Lyceum (formerly The Tamworth Village Store). Betwixt and between the hours of carrot-pulling and chicken-chasing, we have been hard at work, deep in the mountains of New Hampshire, planning for a new space: Part mercantile, part art studio, and all about our new community.
Let’s start from the beginning…
The Tale of A Tamworth Store begins long before I was born. The most wonderful aspect of this tale is that its end is neither written nor foreseeable. This ancient building, this nexus of Main Street will outlive us all.
The earliest record of the store goes back to 1826, when Enoch Remick owned the building. Enoch’s son, Levi & grandson, Charles ran the store under the name “Levi Remick & Son”. The business then passed to Charles’ sons Waddy and Earle.
In 1924, under the management of Waddy and Earle, the store was rechristened “Remick Bros Store”. Waddy and his family lived in the second floor apartment. In 1941, the Remick brothers purchased the building next door to sell dry goods and workwear. If you couldn’t find what you needed at Remick’s Store, then it was probably over at “The Other Store.”
Waddy died in 1971, and the building passed through a series of owners (Gove, Vernava, Behr, Rich, Barron, Fimmano), who continued the retail/grocery operations, expanded the footprint with a single-story addition for a beer/wine cooler, and introduced a pizza oven and sandwich counter. The store closed its doors for business in early 2009, and was purchased by Steven Grasse later that year.
“Is the day of the village store past? Or will Tamworth’s old, much-loved village grocery store defy the odds and reappear in a new incarnation?”
– Annie Riecken, Tamworth Civic News: “A Brief History of Tamworth Village’s Grocery Store”
THE OLDE VILLAGE STORE
The building currently known as The Old Tamworth Store will re-open in 2011 as THE TAMWORTH LYCEUM, a lecture space, art studio, and retail store offering rustic dry goods, light grocery, packaged beer & wine, and a seasonal beverage service.
A NEW ENGLAND LYCEUM
Lyceums were started in Greece by Aristotle. He lectured in gardens and public buildings. In the 1800s, lyceums for the improvement of adult communities caught on in the United States, starting in Massachusetts.
Local and out-of-town lecturers would come to a public space/school/church/garden, and give a program in academia, science, politics, the arts, agriculture, practical knowledge. All were welcome.
Our space will be a modern day New England Lyceum. We will host programs covering a vast and varied array of topics, both practical and theoretical, and provide a nexus for discussion of ideas and community education.
A TRANSCENDENTALIST REVIVAL
By the 1830’s, many of New England’s major intellectual figures were experiencing a familiar disenchantment with the cheapening of American existence that results from exhaustive commercialization.
Eminent writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman, as well as influential reformers as Margaret Fuller, Broson Alcott, and Frederick Hedge, began to hold meetings where they discussed a common frustration with the condition of their rapidly industrializing country.
These meetings were the seedbed of the revolution in American thought now referred to as transcendentalism. Transcendentalists were bound together by a common utopian ethos. Against the frantic and unreflective character of contemporary life, they emphasized early America’s more harmonious union of nature and society, and the self reliance and individualism that it fostered.
THE GENERAL STORE
Coffee (organic, locally roasted, custom blends)
Looseleaf tea (organic, custom blends)
Seasonal beverages (cider, lemonade, switchel)
Pastry (daily feature)
Penny Candy counter
Packaged Beer & Wine
Reading selections: agriculture, philosophy, literature, art, traditional crafts, history
THE PRINTSHOP/DESIGN STUDIO
We plan to build a artist studio on the 1st floor of the store. Graphic design, screenprinting and letterpress will be done here. Artist books, limited edition totes/tees, broadsides, event posters, product packaging, and newsletters will be printed in-house.
CURRENT STATUS OF THE LYCEUM
The building will be closed for business during the renovation process. We are hard at work planning for the official opening of The Lyceum in Spring/Summer 2011! In the meantime, stay abreast of the latest news and happenings from New Hampshire by reading the Lyceum blog…
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[...] can read about the plans for the store on the blog of owners Steve and Sonya Grasse of Philadelphia and Tamworth. It will be [...]