PORT HADLOCK — His grandfather collected pottery by Northwest and Southwest artists.
His father collected old toys, tools, records and movie memorabilia, especially science fiction.
His mother collected jewelry, ceramics, glassware and porcelain.
And as a boy, he collected military uniforms and war mementos.
“I used to buy things from Vietnam veterans,” Peter Allen said.
Peter Allen and his wife, Tara Allen, are the proprietors of the PT Salvage and Re-Purpose Store, a secondhand store they started in a building behind the Joy Luck Restaurant in Port Hadlock.
The goal: to create a new business while divesting themselves of the three generations of collectibles.
“It’s a very eclectic mixture,” Peter said of the store at 95 Chimacum Road.
His parents, Peter and Diane Allen, were graphic artists and printmakers whose design was chosen for the Jefferson County flag. They also bought and sold collectibles in a space at the Port Townsend Antique Mall.
His father died in 2006 at the age of 64. His mother died four years later at the age of 68.
They left behind a house full of art, books and other treasures along with four storage units stacked with boxes.
“They started in the ’70s, so had been collecting for 30-plus years,” Peter said. “They had time to amass quite a lot.”
His mother’s death in January 2010 coincided with Allen being laid off at Townsend Bay Marine.
A 1983 graduate of Port Townsend High School, he had apprenticed with Tom Jay at RiverDog Foundry and was doing bronze marine casting.
The employment outlook and the need to boost the local economy were factors in deciding to open their own business.
“I thought instead of going out and asking for work, I would go out and create it,” Peter said.
Tara Allen, who works at Sunshine Propane, saw the building was available.
A 1983 graduate of Chimacum High School, she has lived in Jefferson County since 1979, when her parents, David Czoberek and Johanna Czoberek, moved to the area from California.
Her parents, also artists, became neighbors of the Allens after moving to Port Townsend.
She and Peter were married at Chetzemoka Park in 1988 but first met when Tara’s family stopped at a garage sale that Peter’s parents were holding during the Jefferson County Fair in the summer of 1981.
“It’s all comes back to the stuff,” Tara said.
Peter and Tara said they came up with the name for their store, PT Salvage and Re-Purpose, thinking they would salvage and sell building supplies before deciding to go with the secondhand store.
Once the local teen center, the building was remodeled by the previous tenant, a telecom company, which partitioned off the back into three rooms for offices, Tara said.
The Allens use one of the smaller rooms for Peter’s father’s record and movie memorabilia.
The second holds vintage clothing and linens, and the third, military uniforms and vintage toys.
Since the store last summer opened, they have sold most of the “Star Wars” toys and the more collectible vinyl records, Allen said, i.e., The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
The signed pottery has also been snapped up.
“We have a group of about a dozen pickers who come through here on a regular basis,” Peter said, referring to people who deal in secondhand items.
The store also provides a place to buy practical items — cast-iron skillets, canning supplies, furniture and tools.
While they accept donations from estates, they do not buy off the street or sell on consignment, Peter said.
They don’t call their business an antique store because they are not asking antique-store prices, preferring the personal interaction to selling on eBay.
“We are not trying to get top dollar,” Peter said. “It allows people who are collecting for themselves to get a real treasure at an affordable price or resell it for a profit.”
Peter’s memories of growing up near North Beach are also treasures.
His grandfather, Robert Allen, was a mechanical engineer who built a home on the bluff, known as the Round House because it was designed after a wine cast.
The area was mostly pastures and woodland back in the ’70s, Allen said, with one landmark: the Farmhouse Restaurant, which was in an old farmstead.
It was known as Conway’s place because it was run by a retired professor by that name, Peter said.
Peter’s claim to fame came in the late 1990s when his PTTV television show, a political satire, drew national media attention when it was taken off the air.
Called the “Project F8 Power Hour,” it featured skits, computer animation and puppets that he had created.
“I would go on the street with the puppets — a policeman and an army general — and interact with people,” he said.
Peter said there is therapy in handling items from the estate of his parents, but there are ups and downs, especially when he sees something that he remembers from his grandmother’s house.
The store also carries items from the estates of his great-aunts and -uncles.
His other grandfather was into model railroading, Peter said.
He remembers being shown the large train layout from visits.
It was too big to keep, he said, so he sold it at a price that was pennies per hour based on the hours his grandfather put into it. But Peter said he believes the person who bought it will love and enjoy it.
“There is a sentimental journey that goes along with this,” he said.
“All my family’s accumulations have wound up in this store.”
Well, not all, at least not yet.
There are still a few treasure chests yet to be opened, he said, and a storage shed full of wooden fishing floats and tools.
Store hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. The shop is closed Sundays and Mondays.
For more information, phone 360-531-4064 or email ptsalvage@gmail.com.
________
Jennifer Jackson is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. To contact her, email jjackson@olypen.com.