A Home with Personality

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Susan Ritter and her daughter-in-law Deana Marchant, co-owners of the Sassy Boutique, take a break from their busy schedules to sip ice tea and catch up on family news in the courtyard garden Susan created and nurtures. She purchased the wrought-iron furniture at a garage sale in Winter Park years ago.

When Susan Ritter spied a colorful plate lying on a dusty shelf in the back room of a Winter Park junk shop she snapped it up. Little did she know that what she paid $5 for years ago would turn out to be Majolica porcelain, a precious and sought-after collectible. “I just liked the way it looked,” she recalls. “When I lived in Winter Park I used to play tennis with some friends. After we finished we would have lunch on Park Avenue and then go what we called ‘junking.’ We never knew what we would find; it was an exciting hunt and I loved it.”

Over the years Susan’s “hunts” have netted several more Majolica plates that now circle the base of the coffered ceiling in her kitchen. There, too, on either side of a large opening that looks out over the living room, individual Minton oyster plates have found a home on rows of recessed shelves. Throughout her barrier island home items she has collected over the years have been artistically arranged, admired and appreciated for their beauty as well as the stories of where and how the hunter found them. Whether it’s a hand-painted cocktail table, a three-legged table with silver top or a centuries-old French screen they all bring back memories.

Read the entire article in the May 2010 issue

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