Veteran shoppers start early to scan wares collected all year. The Chiseler's Market has raised millions for restoration at the University of Tampa.
By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published March 12, 2004
TAMPA - Some people call it the best tag sale in the universe.
That's the best tag sale in the universe, hands down.
Think wicker. Water skis. Waterford. Staffordshire bone china tea cups with little pink flowers. A first edition Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook with dust jacket.
The orchids are divine.
The frozen casseroles even better.
The ladies who put it all together - absolute decorating divas.
"For $250 you can furnish your living room and most of your kitchen," raves Suzanne Strahan, the sale's warehouse chairman. "We have garden ornaments, birdcages - I've counted at least eight or 10. We have china, silver and crystal, once I saw Baccarat. We've got chandeliers. We've got dining room tables. We've had people leave their estates to us."
When the 41st annual Chiseler's Market opens its doors at the University of Tampa on Saturday morning, hundreds of bargain hunters will descend on the handsome old lobby, salons, ballroom and verandah, each hoping to snare enough second-hand serendipity to fill the back of an SUV.
Stories abound about furniture finds worthy of Antiques Roadshow, of entire apartments furnished fashionably for what a sale dress costs at Saks.
For a few bucks, you can pick up some embroidered pillowcases, Roman shades or a set of bar stools.
"The decorators start lining up at 8 a.m.," says Nadyne Hines, who heads this year's furniture donations. "We get all of them. They all come to shop the sale."
The reason?
It's all about quality, the good stuff you don't always find at second-hand stores and garage sales. The 6,000-square-foot former student cafeteria at the University's Riverside Center has been transformed into what looks like an extravagant used-furniture showroom, with prices ranging from $10 to $200. Here's a sampling of what was spotted during a sneak peek last week.
A bamboo bar, beautiful old black file cabinets from the 1940s, an ornate sideboard and matching table in burled maple, dining room chairs with needlepoint seats, a shabby-chic blue chest with ornate brass handles, a pair of matching barrel side tables, an old wooden baby high chair, a pink wing chair, a French provincial vanity/writing desk, a wooden rocking horse.
And of course, there's wicker, wicker and more wicker.
Volunteers also make jellies and soups and breads to sell at the market's gourmet booth. They donate gorgeous bromeliads and bedding plants from their own gardens. They sort through thousands of pieces of flatware and boxes of kitchen gadgets that are sold in the bargain room, where a whistling tea kettle fetches 30 cents and apple slicers, egg poachers and measuring cups cost pennies.
Hines recommends getting to the sale early. Hard-core bargain hunters show up at dawn. Before the doors open at 9 a.m., the line meanders out onto Kennedy Boulevard. Seasoned veterans, Strahan says, have "shopped the market enough" to know exactly where they want to go.
"The last time my daughter shopped the Chiseler's Market three years ago, she furnished her entire studio apartment for $300," says Lesley Dobbins, publicity chairman for the event. "I mean, she truly furnished it."
Hines' daughter-in-law bought two coveted Henredon chairs for $15 each and reupholstered them in attractive fabric. She even bought a handsome $40 armchair and had it re-stuffed with down.
"She's done her whole family room in Chiselers," Hines says.
In an age when even the well-off find it chic to roam the aisles of Goodwill, the Chiseler's Market borders on some sort of second-hand Nirvana. Even donated silk flowers and holiday decorations are magically transformed by volunteers into floral masterpieces, with many selling for as little as $5.
Over the years Chiselers have raised more than $2 million for restoration and preservation of the University of Tampa, formerly the Tampa Bay Hotel, built by tycoon Henry B. Plant in 1891.
"Not bad for a bunch of old ladies," quips Phyllis Russell, quick to point out she will be 80 in October.
The Chiselers were founded in 1959 by Sunny Delo, wife of the president of the University of Tampa, who thought to chisel mortar from the imported antique tiles salvaged from the Tampa Bay Hotel's original fireplace.
The volunteers range in age from 42 to 90, with a running joke that the group is where old Junior Leaguers go to die. But that's just myth. The group remains passionately devoted to preservation - "not decorating" - says Russell.
They aggressively pursue state and national grants to supplement money raised at their annual flea market.
In 1998 Chiselers pulled in a major achievement award from the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation. The following year they earned kudos from the Hillsborough/Tampa Planning Commission for the restoration of the grand entryway to Plant Hall. In 2002 they earned a $400,000 matching grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Service, one of the largest ever awarded. The money goes toward a $1 million exterior restoration of the beautiful old building.
Volunteers spend months sorting through donations in a windowless, putty colored warehouse on North B Street. The love for the grand old building as well as deep friendships formed over the years keep them coming back. Even the husbands, referred to affectionately as "the chaps," get into the act, testing all electrical appliances from bread machines to television sets.
"You should see these ladies work all year long; you can't even describe it," says Russell. "All for one day. And a week later, the donations start coming in again."
If you go
The 41st annual Chiseler's Market will be 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the University of Tampa's Henry B. Plant Hall. Go early for the best bargains.
