BOCA RATON — Hundreds of fabric shoppers bolted into Calico Corners’ new location on Monday, picking up the threads of decorating projects that were cut short by an arsonist three months ago.
Calico Corners welcomed loyal past customers and some new ones at 170 NW 20th St. The original Calico Corners, Palmetto Park Road and Dixie Highway, was destroyed by fire. For 27 years, the shop had been the main tenant in the historical 63-year-old Mitchell Arcade building.
As flames engulfed the building on Feb. 29, fabric buyers cried in the parking lot, Calico’s co-owner Joy Funston said.
While Calico Corners picks up the scraps to start over, police and fire investigators say they are sewing up their inquiry into the cause of the fire.
“I’m closing out the case this week,” said Boca Raton police officer Kathleen Petracco, arson investigator. “I have one suspect, and I can’t take the investigation any further.”
The hemmed-in feeling of the old location has given way to a larger and better-lighted venue. Calico Corners owners Peter and Joy Funston bought a 4,500-square-foot building that, until recently, was kite maker Domina Jalbert’s aerology laboratory.
“I don’t need that much space anymore,” said Jalbert, the 84-year-old kite and parachute maker. “I’m retired from selling toy kites, and only need a scientific office now.”
Inside the spacious new Calico Corners, customers skirted the 10-foot-high fabric bolts, losing themselves in the colors and patterns.
Funston helped a customer with a swatch of autumn-colored fabric.
“Do you have anything to combine with this for the window treatment?” the customer asked.
“You could use a neutral color for the window treatment and staple this to it,” Funston replied, pointing to the fabric.
Aleida Reilly of Delray Beach pushed her grandson, Price, in a stroller past shelves of down pillows.
“I think this store is beautiful,” Reilly said, adding that she was a long- time customer of the original Calico Corners. “I’m a little nostalgic for the old store. But the traffic was heavy on that corner and it was hard to get in and out there. And here, the displays are larger and better.”
The new building, twice the size of the original, holds about 200,000 bolts of fabric, according to Pat Virgin, a sales clerk for many years at the first Calico Corners and now employed at the new shop.
Kay Milos of Deerfield Beach signed her name to a mailing list before leaving the store. She, too, remembered the original Calico Corners.
“I miss the old ladies who worked there, and I miss the tree,” Milos said, recalling the 50-year-old banyan that once shaded Mitchell Arcade, swooping across Dixie Highway and sheltering hundreds of native birds. The tree was cut down to widen Dixie Highway.
Calico Corners now has 70 outlets across the country. The Funstons own five — in Jacksonville, Orlando, Stuart, Miami and Boca Raton. Peter’s father, Will Funston Sr., opened the first Calico Corners in 1945, Funston said.
