AMERICUS — You may have noticed in the news lately all the retail store closures across the country, from Macy’s and Sears to even Ralph Lauren’s flagship Polo store on Fifth Avenue. Well, the times are changing for interior designers, too. Large furniture stores are closing down and most designers now operate out of much smaller boutique shops.
Here in Americus, Mark Minick and partner Ellen Sinyard will be doing the same thing with Minick Interiors. Minick has decided to sell the building on the corner of Cotton and Lamar and move to a smaller, more intimate shop in the Allison Building on Lamar. Built in 1907, to house a furniture store, the building won’t exactly be returning to its roots as a retail store, but will again serve as a center where someone can find furnishings with personalized style and comfort with the help of talented designers.
With all the changes coming, there are still some things that won’t change. Minick will still be offering his unique design solutions with the elegance and simplicity of the Southern tradition. Lydia Ann Fowler will also continue to expand her client base in Americus and the surrounding area. Sinyard and new manager Camron Cummings will run the shop and maintain the bridal registry with help from Lauren Ard. And, of course, as Mark insisted, “Kitty [Mays] and Gail [Wellons] will be with us, as always, forever and a day!”
By mid-October the new shop should be open for business. In the meanwhile, get ready for a fabulous Relocating Sale. To begin with, select items will go on sale, with additional markdowns weekly until the store is empty.
“It’s like leaving my baby,” Minick said. “This was my life for 15 years. It’s hard, like sending a kid off to college. I’m feeling like an empty-nester already.”
But life will be full to overflowing for Minick in the near future. He’ll not only be designing for clients, as usual, he’ll be helping out Nick and Gretchen Gabrielli at Old Biscayne Designs. It’s an old friendship, dating back to when he first went to work with them in 1998. After opening his own shop in 2004, he kept in touch and featured some of their designs in his showroom on Cotton Avenue.
Then in 2015, the Gabriellis asked him to design their showroom floor at the High Point Design Center and that grew into an opportunity in design and sales with Old Biscayne consulting and traveling all over the world for them.
Americus, however, will always be home for Minick. As luck would have it, a home on Upper River Road that Mark has wanted since he was 14 years old, recently became available. Driving home from Atlanta one evening, he passed the house, saw a “For Sale by Owner” sign, pulled it out of the ground and called the number right away. He has been renovating and making it home ever since.