Bath Sweet Shoppe | House for Sale

Have you ever thought about doing something completely different? The Bath Sweet Shoppe in Bath, Maine, is looking for a new owner.

In all the many years we’ve been moseying around New England in search of interesting, sometimes unusual, properties available, our most memorable are those whose new owners completely changed their lives. We recall, for instance, the New Jersey man who purchased a year-round “sporting camp” in Maine we’d featured. “Free,” he said upon quitting his New Jersey job, “free at last.” Then there was the Cleveland, Ohio, couple who purchased an old country store in Vermont with living quarters on the second floor. “Should have done it years ago,” they wrote us.

So now … guess what? We recently discovered another wonderful life-changing opportunity. How would you like to leave your old life behind and move into a lovely old eight-room Colonial in the historic district of Bath, Maine? What would you do there? Well, every morning you’d enjoy an 11-minute walk, past one gorgeous old house after another, to 19 Centre Street, where all the shops are, and open up the Bath Sweet Shoppe, which you’d just purchased. Yes, you’d be spending long hours there year-round, but you’d be beloved by everyone, especially all the children, as “the candy people.”

We recently visited with the owners of the Bath Sweet Shoppe, Joan Fraser and her daughter, Sarah, the youngest of her and husband Paul’s five children. (Tragically, Paul lost his battle with cancer two years ago.) It was a lovely summer morning in downtown Bath. Shopkeepers up and down the street were beginning to open, some sweeping, others arranging outside displays. But Joan and Sarah aren’t open for business until 10:00 a.m., so we had an hour or so to chat with them and enjoy a cup of coffee. Thus it was that during the course of our early-morning visit we learned that both Joan and Paul had had careers in sales in New Hampshire, although Paul had grown up in Maine. “We’d always talked about owning our own business,” Joan said. And then, in 2004, an opportunity came along out of the blue, as opportunity often does. A friend of Paul’s in Bath informed them that a downtown two-story building had become vacant and could be rented at a very reasonable price. Not only that, but they also learned that a recent Bath market survey had concluded that what the city needed was a candy store! Voilà!

Everything moved quickly from then on. Joan and Paul sold their New Hampshire house, quit their sales jobs, bought a house in Bath, and, a bit later, opened the Bath Sweet Shoppe, just three weeks after passing all the necessary papers. “Then the learning process began,” Joan smiled, “but although we made a few mistakes, we were having fun and never regretted making that huge change in our lives.”

The shop’s best-sellers? “Well, anything with a Maine or nautical theme,” Joan replied, adding that her best single seller, especially during the holiday season, is their “lobster dinner”: lobster, corn-on-the-cob, butter, and lemon, all made of solid chocolate. “Our sugarplums are best-sellers at Christmas [see the recipe, right],” she noted, “while chocolate turtles, salt caramels, and fudge are consistent sellers year-round.” (Photos at: bathsweetshoppe.com)

About a third of all the chocolate candy in the store is made by Joan herself, in one of several rooms, including a kitchen, upstairs. (There’s also a cellar for storage and a large parking lot behind the store.) “And I make anything that can be dipped in chocolate,” she said, “such as pretzels, potato chips, fruit, and such.” Also available are honey, maple syrup, and licorice—but nothing that is ordinarily sold at gas stations or convenience stores. So no Hershey bars, no M&Ms, etc.—and nothing made in China. What Joan doesn’t make herself she purchases wholesale from a number of reliable sources around New England.

—

Some specifics: Now that Paul is gone, Joan has reluctantly decided to sell the Bath Sweet Shoppe. She’s asking $50,000 for the business, including the inventory: many glass display cases, assorted cabinets and shelves, two refrigerators, a stove, two microwaves, several chocolate tempering machines, more than 3,000 candy molds (custom candy has been an important part of the business), and on and on. Joan has been renting the entire building (subletting several of the rooms upstairs) from the Sagadahoc Real Estate Association of Bath for $1,458 monthly, which includes heat. Annual water/sewer costs have been about $400 and electricity $1,450. Annual income? About $200,000, with lots of opportunity for growth.

—

Before leaving Bath that day, we stopped by the office of our old friend Sharon Drake, who has been in the real-estate business in Bath for more than 40 years. She took us over to that 1840 Colonial in the historic district we mentioned at the beginning of our story. The price: $274,000. We loved this old place, but Sharon could show you lots of other properties near the store, too.

On our drive back to New Hampshire, we guzzled from a large bag of chocolate goodies that Joan and Sarah had given us. We can only imagine being able to do that all day every day. One would have to restrict oneself, wouldn’t one? But, oh, it would be heaven.

For details, contact Joan and Sarah Fraser, 207-443-3763 (home), 207-841-3595 (cell), jfraser9@comcast.net; or Sharon Drake Real Estate, 207-751-0581 (cell), 207-443-1005 x12 (office), sharondrakerealestate.com.

Yankee likes to mosey around and see, out of editorial curiosity, what you can turn up when you go house hunting. We have no stake in the sale whatsoever and would decline it if offered.

[haven_recipe post_id=”86946″]