MILWAUKEE — An iconic store in the heart of Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood is closing. The antique store American Estates is shutting its doors for good after more than 50 years of service along Kinnickinnic Avenue.
“It really doesn’t bother me. The store's been good to me," Leonard Budney, the store owner said.
Budney, who is now 90, opened American Estates at 2131 S. Kinnickinnic Ave. in 1970. He said famed Marquette men's basketball coach Al McGuire liked to come in the store.
"He use to come in here and play cards with my brother."
The antique store sold old magazines, stained glass windows, records, and more. At one point, he even had Milwaukee business mogul John Plankinton's old elevator. He sold that for around $15,000 he said.
However, after thousands of sales, now the final customers are walking out the door.
"No, I’m not sad about it," Budney said. "Well, because I met a lot of nice people, and it supported me and my family."
Budney got his start collecting antiques while working alongside home demolition crews. If a building was being taken down, he'd be there to collect any left-behind goods. He also went door-to-door across the city in search of anything he could get his hands on.
"I went door-to-door asking people if they had anything in their basement or attic or garage that they wanted to sell," he said.
Of all the things he bought, none might be more specific and interesting than his collection of George Zieglar Company chocolate molds. The company sold chocolate bars until 1972. That's when Budney approached the company asking if he could buy their chocolate molds of Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Statue of Liberty, owls, penguins, flowers, and any other shape you could imagine. At first, they said no. But with a little persistence, he succeeded. He bought all of their molds for $400.
From that moment on, he was consumed with making his old molds. Instead of using chocolate, he poured hydrostone, a plaster-like concrete often used in do-it-yourself projects.
“Every day I’d come here and before I did anything else I made some," he said.
There are dozens of boxes filled with hundreds if not thousands of molds that he never sold.
“He knew what he wanted to do with them was make - instead of make candy molds out of it, (he wanted to) make the little ceramic pieces out of it," his daughter Tammy Hablewitz said.
Hablewitz is helping her dad with the final sales.
"But the other part is, yea, it's a little bit sad too when you grew up here and you have all the memories here, and all the stuff that you did down here. It's a little hard to see it going away, you know. But I guess, what would you say, bittersweet, is what I would say," Hablewitz said.
Right now, all sales at the store are in cash. If you want to visit the store one more time, you better act fast. The store's stocks are quickly depleting.
Around 1972, Budney bought much of Ziegler's remaining products as it closed down. Now, in 2023 as Budney is closing his business so too are people buying the last of his stock.
Doors will be officially closed by the end of April.
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