Four miles from downtown Ellsworth, on the road toward Bangor, sits one of the more architecturally unusual antique shops in Maine. The building at 444 Bangor Road, a former Moto-Car dealership, comes complete with turrets, elaborate exterior metalwork, and two large ocular windows, including a six-by-nine-foot circular window set into a section co-owner Shelly Bradsell calls the hamster wheel. Shelly and her husband Tom purchased the eccentric four-acre property for $125,000 in December, then invested another $270,000 and long hours of sweat equity rehabilitating it into 1A Relics, honoring the building’s original quirky character rather than stripping it down.
Inside, roughly 130 individual booths spread across 12,000 square feet and three floors hold an almost overwhelming range of merchandise: antique furniture, vintage books, action figures, nautical items, garden ornaments, vintage license plates, old advertising signage, and local Ellsworth-area memorabilia including antique maps, postcards, and branded goods from long-closed area businesses. The Bradsells source much of the inventory themselves through auctions, supplementing that with work from Maine photographers, fine artists, and artisans. Visitors consistently describe needing far more than a single visit to see everything, with reviewers specifically noting the place is simply too big to take in during one trip and calling it more of a museum than a conventional antique shop.
The shop leans into its rugged, nostalgic character, with one local write-up specifically highlighting its appeal to fans of what it calls mantiques, vintage license plates, signage, and local memorabilia that make distinctive statement decor for homes and man caves alike. An on-site ice cream trailer gives visitors a reason to linger even longer, and the shop’s oddball charm has even attracted film production interest, having served as a filming location for a movie. Staff, described repeatedly as friendly and knowledgeable, are happy to share the building’s own history alongside the stories behind individual pieces.
1A Relics keeps generous daily hours, open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, air-conditioned and clean despite the sheer volume of inventory packed into the space. Being positioned directly on Route 1A between Ellsworth and Bangor makes the shop an easy stop for travelers heading toward Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.
For anyone road-tripping toward Acadia looking for a genuinely unforgettable antique experience housed in one of Maine’s most architecturally distinctive buildings, 1A Relics offers hours of discovery, and more than one repeat visitor has admitted to planning a return trip before they’ve even finished exploring the first floor. 1A Relics is a three-floor, 130-booth antique mall in a rehabilitated former car dealership on Route 1A in Ellsworth, Maine, owned by Shelly and Tom Bradsell and known for its eccentric building and mantique-heavy inventory.
