Bartons Celebrating Grand Opening Today

Bartons Toys moved out of its downtown home of 48 years last month, and into a new home in Shellmore Village.

Owners Megan Beidl and Erastus Corning are celebrating its grand opening today by handing out a free toy to every child that comes by between 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. The new Bartons is located at 728 South Shelmore Suite 102.

In March Beidl and Corning had to find new homes for both Bartons and The Silver Puffin because the College of Charleston had decided to move forward with plans to renovate the Sottile Theatre to install a college gift shop and restore theater access through the King Street entrance, which the two stores were sharing.

"Barton's had been on King Street for 48 years," Beidl said. "I'm still looking for a spot on King for Bartons, it's just a challenge to find affordable space."

For now the store has been expanding the lines of construction toys it carries, adding to the various lines of educational and science themed toys on the shelves. Bartons also carries plush toys, puppets, books, candy, puzzles and games.

Beidl is a big fan of Lego, and is excited to begin carrying Nanoblocks as well. Bartons also has kits for building model trebuchets and catapults, Thinking Putty that comes in glow-in-the-dark, clear, Hypercolor and magnetic varieties, and Cubebots - posable wooden robot puzzle toys that fold into a cube.

Beidl and Corning decided to split up Bartons and The Silver Puffin since they had to look for new space anyway. The two had always been an odd pair since Beidl and Corning bought Bartons in 2005.

"It seemed it was an awkward combination to begin with," Beidl said of the combined stores. "Bartons was always toys and candy and clothes, and then when Sarah Anne's closed we took on some of her lines too, but it was an awkward mix with Penzo and our glassware."

The couple had opened The Silver Puffin on King Street in 1996 near the corner of Wentworth and King. After nine years at that location they bought out Bartons and moved into it's spot at the corner of George and King to run the combined store. Now seemed the perfect opportunity to untangle them.

"We decided the artistic stuff needed to be in an artistic space, and the toys needed to be in a kid-friendly space," she said.

The Silver Puffin has found a new home at 43 Broad Street. Right in the middle of Gallery Row, Beidl said the location is a great fit for the Puffin which carries many hand-crafted home goods as well as designer jewelry.

The new space is smaller than either of the Puffin's previous locations though, so Beidl and Corning are trimming the inventory somewhat and trying to figure out what will do best in the new spot. The store is and has been the exclusive dealer of Penzo pottery, a line of dishes and serving pieces fired and hand painted by Zimbabwean artists, since opening in the mid 1990s, and the line retains prominent display space in the new store. Beidl said it also sells well through the Puffin's website.

It also carries various lines of glassware, some hand-painted, some with sculpted metal bases in the shapes of animals likely to pop up on an African safari, as well as some local food items like the always popular benne wafers and other South Carolina produced foods like plantation rice, local tea and taffy.

The Puffin also has a reputation for carrying unique items and continues that tradition with lamps crafted from broken musical instruments by Seth Carson.

Beidl and Corning opened the doors at the Puffin's new location on March 14.