WILLIAMSTON, Mich. — A fire that broke out early Thursday morning has destroyed Red Cedar Antiques off Grand River Avenue in Williamston.
Tod Parkhill owns Lovely Junk and operated his business out of Red Cedar Antiques.
"My booth had window front access here and this is where it would have been." You can still see some of my books there that I had," Parkhill said. "There’s a crate of records over there behind what I think is the roof.”
The fire destroyed everything.
“We got a call about 10 after two this morning we had smoke coming from the building so we’re toned out and when we arrived we had fire through the back side of the building,” Director and Fire Chief for Niesa Michael Yanz said.
Mason, Delhi, Lainsburg, Fowlerville, Meridian Township, Perry and Dansville all responded to the incident. Yanz said no injuries were reported.
When he got the call this morning, Parkhill said he was hoping for the best case scenario, until he saw the building.
“There’s that isolated thought in the back of your mind that maybe it’s an isolated fire, maybe there’s no smoke damage, maybe there’s not water damage," Parkhill said. "But this is the whole place. It’s a total loss.”
From his business items that he poured time into restoring, to a mural he painted on the outside of the building.
“I worked with Todd last year to install a mural on the front corner there by the entrance to kind of give the place a little face lift and actually you can still kind of see a corner of it over there,” Parkhill said.
Everything is gone except for a framed firefighter patch that somehow made it out of the fire undamaged.
"As far as you know, everything's going fine until something unexpected happens and then there’s nothing left,” Parkhill said.
Parkhill said he hopes Red Cedar Antiques eventually gets back up and running, but he doesn't know if that's where he'll end up again.
“I don’t know how long this would be so I don’t think Red Cedar Antiques is where Lovely Junk will be anymore. Which is a shame," Parkhill said. "I liked this place.”
Firefighters are still investigating the cause of the fire.
Parkhill said as far as what's next for him, he's going to take it one day at a time starting with the Capital City Creatives Crawl June 25.
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