News & Views
Photo of Sandwich Village by Joe Janis
Everything you need to know about this year's Christmas in the Village!For over 40 years, a two-day holiday fair and sale has magically appeared across the town of Sandwich on the first weekend in December. This year’s Christmas in the Village features 19 locations with over 40 participants, selling a wide variety of crafts, fine art, gifts, goodies, and holiday ornaments, greens and décor. You’ll find the holiday spirit everywhere with with many venues offering hand-crafted ornaments and holiday décor. Your Neighbors Flowers and Something Wild Farm is a collaboration between two North Sandwich Farms offering local and sustainably harvested spruce and fir Christmas Trees, table top trees, wreaths and other handmade gifts Saturday 12/3 & Sunday 12/4 9am to 2pm on both sides of the Green in Center Sandwich. Pam Urda will have beautiful evergreen wreaths and centerpieces at Wayside Farm, Amy Brown will have holiday wreaths, kissing balls, centerpieces and ornaments at the Doris Benz Center, and Shirly Glines will show fresh holiday arrangements at the Sandwich Home Industries. Craftspeople and makers will set up in small groups at various locations. At Partridge Hill Farm, you’ll find four vendors in a spectacular barn, open only on Saturday 10am - 2pm only. Rachel Bartlett will have her hand thrown, high fired, functional pottery, glazed to reflect colors of the natural world. Macrame Christmas ornaments, winter paintings, & gnomes are available from Jodi with an Eye. Vicky Dworkin will bring her Fabrications: fabric collage landscapes of local scenes; as well as table top Christmas arrangements from recycled and vintage materials. Laser Focused Designs & Gifts will have unique gifts ranging from charcuterie boards, earrings coasters, holiday ornaments & more. Custom orders are available to make your gifts more personalized. The Doris Benz Community Center will be open Saturday only 9 am- 4 pm, Little Apiary on the Hillside will have local raw honey, beeswax candles, honey based soaps, lotion bars & lip balm, as well as handmade patchwork quilts. You’ll also find hand-dyed napkins, dish towels & clothing, hand carved block printed, silkscreen and real leaves from Robin Cornwall and original photo card of flowers, animals and local landscapes by Jessica Kelly. Wayside Farm will be open Saturday and Sunday 10am-3pm, featuring pottery & wood-turned candlesticks by Ben Shambaugh, jewelry & quilled paper Christmas cards from Amanda Twaddle, Photography, prints & ink drawings by Liz Shelley and a variety of Christmas ornaments, bucket hats, Ukrainian eggs & hand-stitched pillows by Wendy Shambaugh. Get a reallyy sweet treat of fudge and peanut brittle from Jennifer Simpson. Early on, the event featured open studios and workshops, a tradition that continues today. Field Fine Art, the studio of artist and sculptor Kathryn Field will be open Saturday 10am - 4pm and Sunday 10am - 3pm. At MuMandi Glass Studio, Ann Lambert creates colorful fused glass ornaments, dishes and more, open Saturday only 10am to 4-ish. Weaver Suzanne Rowan will have hand-woven items to wear and for the home, rug-hooking & other handmade treasures, also on Saturday only 10am - 4pm. The workshop of Will Lehmann Frames will open Saturday 12/3 10am - 4pm & Sunday 12/4 10am - 3pm. He’s been doing custom picture framing, custom woodworking & finishing for 49 years. Enjoy cookies and cocoa at Kindred Spirit Farm and shop for hand-knit hats, hand-crafted felted soaps, jams, salsas, dog biscuits, & nesting balls for your fine feathered friends.Open Saturday 9 to 4 and Sunday 10 to 3. Of course, the shops in Center Sandwich village will be open, and will also host special guest makers and sellers. The Sandwich Home Industries be open Saturday 10am - 5pm and Sunday Noon -5pm. Along with the fine crafts from The League of NH Craftsmen, you’ll find photography and photo cards from Susan Lirakis who also makes cozy Polartec hats, Marcy Greene’s handmade bags and accessories, small batch, hand-thrown stoneware pottery by Suzanne Weil and whimsical hand-knit Climate Critters from Anne Richards to benefit . The Porch will be Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 5pm with a selection of gifts, holiday decor, seasonal apparel, and antiques. Stop in to sop and enjoy complimentary home-made cookies and refreshments. Willow Pond Antiques & Goods is unique and whimsical shop featuring antiques and vintage item, home decor, local crafts and unique curiosities, with Sandwich’s own talented ANNE MADE crafts and homemade delicacies Saturday 12/3 & Sunday 12/4 10am to 5pm.
Looking for an old or rare book? Hill Country Books will be open Saturday 12/3 & Sunday 12/4 10am to 4pm. The Sandwich Historical Society will also have books, along withcards, ornaments, Sandwich Fair posters, vintage travel posters, Sandwich Hoodies and Crews, magnets, White Mountain puzzles & more! Also showing at there are Hannah’s Handmade Crafts crochet holiday garlands, scarves and shawls and Kathie Fife Photography & Fabric Art - Fine Art Photography greeting cards, bookmarks, ornaments; art of New Hampshire’s nature, landscapes & historic sites, handmade fabric art gift bags, gift card holders, bowl cozies and napkins, hand-warmers & organic catnip toys. Custom orders available. Open Saturday & Sunday 10 to 3 Visit the Marigold Moon Wildcraft Apothecary for locally wild-crafted plant medicinals in the form of tea blends, tinctures, oils, balms, salves, and more. Beverage teas available. And featuring books by MJ Pettengill, local author, historian & wildcrafter. Saturday & Sunday 10am to 3pm. Feeling hungry? Stop by and warm up at the Ladies Aid Soup & Chowder Luncheon on Saturday from 11am -2pm at Sandwich Community Church. Or stop by the Doris Benz Center whose young pastry chefs have been busy baking up their specialties on Saturday from 10am to 4pm. Enjoy breakfast, lunch or dinner, or just a cup of coffee at The Foothills Café and Curio, open Saturday 8am - 9pm and Sunday 9am -10pm and enjoy live Christmas and Celtic music by the CaravanBand from 10am - 2pm both days. Foothills Café will also be hosting local artist Blair Newcomb with oil paintings and card, and Fraser Design’s fabulous winter hats with a Polartec lining by Linda Danielovich. Art by toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarteners at the Sandwich Children’s Center, a fundraiser to benefit the Center. And before you leave the Fair, have your gifts wrapped and ready to go at Wrap-a-thon Fund Raiser to benefit Advice To The Players, Sandwich’s own Shakespeare Theatre For more tasty treats visit the Young Maple Ridge Sugarhouse for Papa Beans small-batch homemade ice cream and pick some sweet gifts of maple syrup, maple cream, maple candy, maple sugar & maple bourbon syrup -all made on site. Open Saturday and Sunday 9am to 9pm. Or stop by the Mount Israel Grange Hall Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning 9am to noon, and shop for local farm products, garlic, onions, herbs, squash, maple syrup, jams, beef, pork, baked goods & more from Chestnut Meadow Farm and Mountain Breeze Farm to take home. Each venue has set its own hours, and some are only open on Saturday. You’ll find everything you need to know about who’s selling what, where and when, along photos and descriptions of each participant offerings on our website http://sandwichchristmasinthevillage.com, including a printable map to plan your shopping tour. Email sandwichristmasinthevillage@gmail.com for more information, or contact Julie Deak at 603-707-0140 or find us on Facebook. What is your name and the name of your business? My full name is Carl Parker Hansen. Named after my father Carl, but not junior. To my closest friends and the government I'm Carl but I've gone by Parker my whole life. The name of my business is Lower Corner Millworks, named after our family home in the old brick store at the historic Lower Corner. How did you get to Sandwich, NH? My relationship with Sandwich goes back as far as I can remember. We summered in our small family cottage on Dinsmore Pond until we moved here permanently in 1999 to renovate the old brick store. My parents met in Sandwich in the early 80s doing theater with the Sandwich players in a production of Our Town. My father owned and operated the only gas pump by the only "traffic light" in town. Generations of our family on the Howe side (my father’s mother was a Howe) have lived on Diamond Ledge and Howe Hill, including Rev. Chester Howe. My father has cousins who still live on Howe Hill in Sandwich. I had moved away to Portland, Maine in 2014 after college, but returned in 2020 to start my own cabinet shop. What got you started in this profession? My father has always been a carpenter and cabinet maker, so growing up I would help him as much as I could. After gaining my degree in Environmental Studies from The University of Vermont, I pursued a career in teaching but after being waitlisted for grad school, I began working at a cabinet shop in South Portland, Maine. For five years I worked my way up to production supervisor at one of the largest cabinet shops in New England, while simultaneously attending Southern Maine Community College to earn an Associates Degree in Architectural and Engineering Design. I then saw an opportunity to return to Sandwich with the skills I had gained, to try my hand at running my own cabinet shop. I knew my father was retiring, as well as a few other cabinet makers/carpenters in town, so I felt that there would be an eventual void that needed to be filled. In the winter of 2020 I started Lower Corner Millworks. Tell us about your business. What do you make, do, or offer as a service? Initially I began making signs and small wooden crafts like cribbage boards, catch-all trays, cutting boards, etc., but knew I wanted to be making cabinets and furniture. It took about six months but I eventually built my first kitchen for a client. I’ve made several tables and I was hired to fill an entire home with bookshelf built-ins, bunk beds, an entertainment unit and a full kitchen. I still provide sign engraving services, custom gifts and other misc. products, including 3D topographical maps, flight boards for breweries (a flight board is a serving tray for small glasses of beer or wine or spirits) and the occasional cutting board! I also have a relationship with The Shaker Furniture Company to make furniture parts and I use a CNC router for some projects. A CNC Machine or Computer Numerical Control Machine is a computer-aided router that allows the user to program text or shapes to be cut out or engraved onto a designated material. In my case, I engrave signs into wood or signboard, cut out furniture parts out of wood, create 3D landscapes out of solid wood or cut cabinet parts out of plywood. How did your business get started? My business began pretty easy. Registering my LLC, acquiring start-up funds from The Wentworth Economical Development Corporation and finding a shop space to rent all happened very quickly. My first client was The Shaker Furniture Company, who hired me to make furniture parts before I even had my shop set up. What is the most fun/satisfying aspect of your work? The best part of my job is setting my own hours, deciding what jobs to take and basically just being able to do what I love every day. I could be working on a live edge table one day and then making a custom charcuterie board the next. The scope of my work is diverse, which I love. I also get to bring my dog to the shop which is probably the best part. What is the hardest? There are a few difficult aspects of my job. I make my own hours which is fantastic, but not having a "clock-in" time sometimes results in sleeping in a little longer than I should some days! Definitely the most difficult part of the job is juggling every task that goes into running your own business, specifically, bookkeeping. I cannot stress enough how boring yet important it is to keep track of all the ins and outs of my business and I'm learning quickly that hoarding receipts in a manilla folder until tax season is not a great habit to get into. What are your goals and hopes for the future? My goals when I started this adventure were pretty straightforward; to build what I wanted and continue the tradition of craftspeople in Sandwich. I had to leave Sandwich to really appreciate the town I grew up in. When I knew my father was retiring from his long career as a cabinet maker and carpenter, I knew that there would be opportunities to fill the void he left behind. The first year of operating I made four signs for local businesses, several large cabinet jobs, and a contract to provide Sandwich-based Shaker Workshops with furniture parts. I have made countless gifts and game boards for people I grew up around. I joked in my college essay that "Sandwich is a vibrant town full of carpenters and yoga instructors, where the post office parking lot looks like a Subaru dealership." Fifteen years after writing that essay, I find myself driving my Outback to the post office to pick up mail for my own woodworking business. What else can you tell us about yourself and your business?
I'm learning something new everyday. Working in Sandwich means a lot to me. Personally, Sandwich has always been my home, whether it be summers as a small child, becoming our "new home" when I was in 5th grade or when I returned after years away. Creating my business in this small town full of hardworking men and women makes me very proud. Carrying on the traditions of these people is something I take very personally and I hope I can make my family and neighbors proud. To learn more about Lower Corner Millworks visit: lowercornermillworks.com or get in touch with Parker at: 603-986-8391, parkerlcm@gmail.com. Facebook and Instagram people can search Lower Corner Millworks Sam Kachmar, new owner of the Corner House Restaurant & Bar, tells us how he came to Sandwich. Enjoy! Tell us about yourself: How did you connect with Sandwich, NH? What made you decide to live here? I connected with Sandwich in the early 2000s. A family friend bought a piece of land up on Smithville Rd, and engaged SKA, my architecture firm based in Cambridge, MA to design a weekend home for them that they could eventually retire to. It looks out to Red Hill. Over time they decided to reside permanently up in Sandwich, so we added two wings on either side of the main structure. In going up for site visits to the land in Sandwich, I heard about the Sandwich Fair, and came up for that with my wife and kids. We visited Beede Falls, hiked with family friends, and really enjoyed being surrounded by nature. We found Sandwich to be such a special place that our family came to visit often the following year. While here on a site visit my wife found a listing for a home down on Metcalf Rd. We went and looked at a beautiful cove with a really run down cabin from 1970. We bought it. We thought about tearing it down and starting new, but we loved the bones of the house, so we worked to restore some of the mid-century detailing as well as providing modern amenities to the home. While we don't live in Sandwich full time, we do spend as much time as we can at our home during the summer when it's not rented out. In the fall, winter, and spring we enjoy being in the quiet of Sandwich rather than the busy scene of Cambridge and Boston. What were you doing before you came here and what are you doing now? I have been running the SKA Architecture Studio in Cambridge, MA since 2008. We design residential homes in Cambridge and the surrounding areas, and now that I have opened up an SKA office in Sandwich, we offer that same service in the Lakes Region of NH. SKA is pronounced S…….K…..A, not skah, like the music. We utilize Virtual Reality in our work to allow our clients to experience their homes before they are actually built. This technique creates a reduction in variables and surprises during the construction process, and that makes our projects boring in the best way. When the project is complete, the clients say, "Wow, that looks just like it did in VR." What made you decide to buy a historic business in the center of town? I wanted to buy a building in Sandwich as I have loved the time spent up here over the last few years. 22 Main St became available and presented itself as a unique opportunity to house the Corner House restaurant, the Sandwich Creamery, and Sam Kachmar Architects (SKA). Where do you see the Corner House in the next few years? What are your hopes for the business? I see the Corner House improving as a destination restaurant over the next few years. The building and land are in need of some significant maintenance and upgrades. We are planning to replace the roof with a solar roof, upgrade the insulation and HVAC systems of the building, replace rotted wood, etc, in an effort to bring the building back to the prominent status that it has held within the town for decades. What is the most fun/satisfying aspect of your life here? One of the most fun and satisfying aspect of my life in Sandwich is to see people coming back to the Corner House and being excited to have the restaurant going again. Some people have described the Corner House as “Sandwich’s living room.” That is a really nice moniker to have associated with the restaurant. There are so many ways I love being in this town. I love spending time at the Foothills with Nancy and Rebecca, and going to the dump to see John and Kevin. Old Home Week this year was a such a fun event for our kids. I really love walking out into the woods near our house, and just standing in the trees. It recharges my batteries. What else can you tell us about your experience of Sandwich?
This town is brimming with intelligence, energy, thoughtfulness, and caring people. I’m happy to see high speed internet making its way into the town. Sandwich is such an appealing town that it has become a beacon for retirees from many parts of the country. As we move forward with high speed internet utilities, there is an opportunity for Sandwich to chart its course and redefine what kind of town it wants to be going forward. I love coming up here from the city. I can feel the stress of the city falling off my shoulders as I drive down 113 towards Sandwich. |
News & Views
News of what's happening in Sandwich and other items of interest. Meet Our Members
Please enjoy the Sandwich Business Group's 2021 project called Meet Our Members. Read interviews with fascinating people who live here and run businesses, organizations, and engage in other creative pursuits.
Categories
All
|
|
Follow Discover Sandwich on Facebook!
|