Stuart Kingston celebrates 80th year in business

For 80 of Rehoboth Beach’s 119 years, the Stuart Kingston Gallery has been where it has always been, on the north end of the Boardwalk next to the Henlopen Hotel. Stuart Kingston is also doing what it has always done: remembering the past while moving forward toward the future.

“We’re planning to, as we go forward, announce the 80th. We’re sending out a lot of direct mail and to let people know we’re still around after 80 years,” owner Jay Stein said.

Stuart Kingston was started in 1930 by Stein’s father, Maurice, and business partner Sydney Cohan, who leased the building on the Boardwalk next to the Henlopen Hotel from it owner, Winfred Grenoble.

“My father and his partner worked for a guy named Stuart Kingsley, and they liked the name, so they just changed it,” Jay Stein said.

“My grandfather, who died before I was born, they were from Portland, Maine. He was in the jewelry business and that was my father’s schooling. But he [Maurice Stein] just decided to do his own thing,” Stein said. “It’s really a unique story in and of itself: here’s this young guy in his 20s traveling from the north – he was living in New York at the time – going south to Florida. They found this place in this little tiny town. He came and decided he loved it and decided to make it his life.”

An antique showroom and auction house since its founding, Stuart Kingston’s auctions were particularly popular, especially during the 1950s when Cohan and Stein conducted them on the Boardwalk, which was much wider at the time.

The auctions were a key part of Stuart Kingston’s early business.

“As a matter of fact, my father and his partner had no money. So what they did, they sold other people’s merchandise,” Stein said. “Ninety percent was all consignment.”

The auction business was recently discontinued at the Boardwalk location but is still ongoing at Stuart Kingston’s auction house off Rehoboth Avenue, one of many changes Stuart Kingston has had to make in recent times.

“Well, number one, the upstairs, that was a showroom upstairs; now it’s a physical therapy center and a gym. That’s a monster change. We have some other ideas going forward. We haven’t implemented anything yet,” Jay Stein said. “It’s possible we could leave this location, but it’s possible we could stay at this location but just downsize it.”

Over the years, the business has expanded to include rugs, carpets and jewelry. Stein said the rugs and jewelry business has always been the foundation of Stuart Kingston and will remain that way going forward.

Stein became involved in the family business in 1961, at the age of 21. The next year, Stuart Kingston was totally destroyed by the Storm of ’62, but the Steins quickly rebuilt.

“It did a job on us,” Stein said of the storm. “March 6, 7 and 8 of 1962. We were back in business, in the building you’re sitting in now, in August.”

In 1966, Stein and his father purchased the Stuart Kingston building on the Boardwalk and gradually expanded. In 1973, Maurice Stein passed away. Today, the next generation of Steins is coming into the business, with Stein’s daughter Mauria taking an active role as a buyer traveling up and down the East Coast.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Jay Stein joked. He said he has no plans to retire anytime soon. “I guess if I became infirm,” he cracked. “But no, I don’t.”

While Stuart Kingston is turning 80 this year, the Steins can’t say exactly what date the gallery opened. Mauria Stein said, “We don’t really have a date. The Storm of ’62 washed away all those records.”

Although Stuart Kingston is known primarily for its Rehoboth location, there is also a location in Wilmington. However, Jay Stein said this is about to change.

“We’re separating completely. We did that for the next generation. My brother, he has three children and none of them are interested in the business,” he said.

Memories of the Rehoboth location are enough to last a lifetime, from visits by former President Richard Nixon – “I wasn’t really keen on him,” Stein said – to buying trips overseas to places as diverse as Iran – before the shah was deposed – and India.

“I’ve seen such extraordinary, aside from my own business, changes in town. My dad traded a tea set for his house on St. Lawrence Street. Rehoboth was a really extraordinary place to grow up,” Stein said. “In my opinion, it has all been very positive.”