Lebanon's antiques

Southern Living, Jun 1996 by Rada, Joe

Three bucks buys a cute set of porcelain salt and pepper shakers painted like Holsteins. Six grand lets you haul home the ornate wood and stained glass of a twin-door confessional salvaged from an Amsterdam cathedral.

If you're a shopper who delights in such extremes, enjoy an afternoon in Lebanon, Tennessee. Some 207 antiques dealers occupy the self-proclaimed Antique City of the South. A few dot country roads, but most face a town square where traffic circles a Confederate monument and old-fashioned lampposts rise above unmetered parking spaces.

Cuz's Antique Center reigns over one corner. A labyrinth of narrow aisles in several buildings bulges with finds. Stained-glass transom windows ($75-$300) gleam in frames either carefully restored or calling out for loving attention. A giant china cabinet ($1,200) stands just a cracked pane or two from perfection. Classical bronze statues ($100 and up) beg to grace garden fountains or stair landings. There are countless oil paintings and pocketknives, plus that 12-foot-high confessional waiting for the right buyer.

Rainbow Relics, located in a former bank, ironically keeps halfprice items in an open vault. Other investments include a butcherblock table 10 inches thick ($599) and glass-bead hat pins ($10).

Variety swells exponentially as you make your way past a dozen storefronts around the Square. Heartbreak Ridge General Store shelves unique marbles, rare bottles, and penny candy still priced at a penny. The Downtown Antique Mall mixes Victorian and primitive Southern furniture, camelback mantel clocks, and cast-iron model trains. Collectible beer steins overlook racks of vintage clothing at The Emporium.

The Antique Doctor hangs his shingle just south of the square. Ron Wells specializes in furniture repair and restoration. And he all but bows to pray when he talks of the 1948 Schwinn Black Phantoma one-speed bicycle with chrome fenders, whitewall tires, and leather saddle-that he put two years' labor into (asking price $2,450).

If any of Lebanon's antiques have that kind of religious effect on you, maybe you should head back to Cuz's and reconsider that confessional, unless another devout buyer has indulged in it already. Joe Rada