Search led to store

Nicki Winkles and her antique and vintage business have experienced quite a bit of change in the last year and a half.

She and her family moved to New Corydon. She bought a new house, which came with a building to use as a new storefront. She’s come up with a new business plan. And just this month, she’s given her business a new name.

Winkles is the owner of newly christened River Road Vintage, formerly known as The Vintage Farmhouse. She started the business about a decade ago when she was living in Zionsville.

Her store offers a wide variety of pieces, from fixed-up furniture and vintage jewelry to home decor and dish ware. Especially popular this fall were flannel shirts dip-dyed in bleach, she said.

“(It’s) vintage decor that’s specifically curated,” Winkles said. “And we search for the unique pieces.”

Her inventory is housed in a brick building at 7450 Main St., Bryant, in the small community of New Corydon in Jay County’s northeast side. It came with the house across the street where Winkles and her family now live. That package deal is what prompted the move to Jay County in the first place.

A little over a year ago, Winkles’ family had temporarily relocated to Indiana after living in Tennessee. They were going to move to the East Coast after Winkles’ father recovered from an operation, but her Google searching habit turned that plan on its head.

“I’m one of those people constantly looking at properties, even when we’re not looking at properties,” Winkles said. “I saw this one, and I saw that it came with the building across the street, and I said, ‘Let’s just do it.’”

Since then, she’s worked on fixing up the new store, which still needs air conditioning, heating and plumbing, and changing up her business model. She’s spent the last 10 years building The Vintage Farmhouse, including an online store, but wants to focus more on in-person sales now.

“Online is so impersonal,” Winkles said. “I like to see people face-to-face and tell them about what it is that they’re getting, and I like to know what their plans are to do with it. It has more character and it builds more relationships that way with our customers.”

She’s held monthly barn sales since September 2017 and used social media to help spread the word. At her largest sale, she had about 100 shoppers.

“I wasn’t sure how it would do, you know, trying to build up a customer base here because it’s so far away to any main city or town,” Winkles said. “But I’ve been surprised with, and pleased with, we’ve got like a regular customer base already.”

Winkles didn’t ever think she’d change the name of her business, but she wants to expand her offerings and move away from the niche that the old name represented.

“Vintage farmhouse just got to be such a popular thing to the point where I feel like it’s overdone, and it really only encompasses a specific style,” Winkles said. “I wanted something that will transition with us as styles change.”

The new name pays homage to a song called “Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart, a favorite of Winkles’; a late friend who shared the name of one of the original homesteaders at the nearby Wabash River; and of course, the river itself.

“Most people when they find out that we live here, they’re like, ‘Oh New Corydon, that’s where it floods,’” Winkles said. “And it does. There’s days that we wake up and the river over there has basically become the roads.”

She’s hoping River Road Vintage helps rejuvenate the business scene on the north side of the county, and pointed to Redkey as an example. What started as a handful of antique shops there has blossomed into an expanding business community, and Winkles wants to follow suit.

“I would love if we could manage to start it off kind of like Redkey,” Winkles said. “It’s just sad when small towns like this start to decay, like they’ve done around here.”

The last barn sale before spring was two weeks ago, a last-ditch effort to clear out merchandise and empty the building. Once the weather warms up, Winkles and her family will give it a good cleaning and seal the interior brick walls.

Winkles didn’t envision that she’d end up in a small community in rural Indiana. But her family has settled in, and she intends to stay in New Corydon.

“I wish I had some kind of neat story, some sort of attachment to the area, but it was just looking randomly and finding the house with the building,” Winkles said.

She’s got a new home, a new storefront and a refurbished business with a new name — all thanks to a Google search.