Dunedin's much-loved antique store Broad Bay China is set to close next month after its owner could not find someone to take it over.
The end of the line for the specialist china store comes after Sue More sold her historic Broad Bay home last month, with the buyer electing not to continue running the shop on the same property.
She had tried for a year and a-half to find someone who wanted to buy the house - which was once a holiday home belonging to the Speight brewing family - and run the store, but had been unsuccessful.
"There were people who wanted to buy the house and people who wanted to buy the shop, but you couldn't separate the two.''
This was because the resource consent for the store required its operator to live at the house.
She started the shop in a converted garage as a hobby after she retired as a teacher in 2000, but it soon grew to be much more than that, with two extra rooms added after she ran out of space.
Its popularity had grown since.
"It's become a destination, which is nice. I think people find it surprising that way in this out-of-the-way place there is such a lot of stock.''
The shop was one of a declining number of antique stores in Dunedin, which had been hit hard by the rise in online trading.
But she was never tempted to put her stock on the web as she preferred the "face to face'' contact that came with running a store.
"There are still people who prefer to touch, feel and search themselves rather than do it online.''
Over the 16 years she had run the shop, there had been a "tremendous'' amount of change in what china was fashionable - with New Zealand's Crown Lynn becoming highly sought after.
"The white swans, which you were once lucky to get $10 for, you are now getting $200-plus for.''
Talking to customers was the thing she would miss most when the shop closed on February 21.
She made the decision to sell so she could have more time to visit her grandchildren in Wellington.
"I will probably stay in Dunedin, but I will be freer to hop on a plane and visit the family,'' Mrs More said.
The home was built in 1918 as a summer retreat for Charles and Jessie Speight and their five children.
