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Where to find salvaged
items for your old house

For homeowners and contractors seeking something special for the home – especially something from the past – New England Demolition & Salvage is just the ticket. Unwanted church pews, mantels, doors and windows from another era find a place here.

From its humble beginnings in just one room of 8,000 square feet, the business has expanded to about 60,000 square feet in the building once housing the Ocean Spray Processing plant in East Wareham. For Harry and Jeanine James, an interest in old, used materials coupled with a collector’s obsession led to a full-blown career of recycling old-house materials.
When the typical client calls and says, “I’ve got a house coming down,” Jeanine or Harry will take a look and make an offer on the contents. When buying salvage materials from homeowners, the Jameses often take care of the demolition, as well. They appreciate the recycling aspect of the business. They just don’t make things like they used to, cliché as it sounds.

New England Demolition & Salvage carries the unusual, as well as the accessible. Inside the main warehouse, you’ll find an eclectic array: safes, a phone booth, a 19th-century buggy, barber chairs, even a podiatrist’s chair. Another whole building is filled with windows, and they inventory at least 5,000 doors alone. Columns, light fixtures, stair parts, shutters, spindles, cabinet doors, mantelpieces and elaborate English stained glass (their specialty) pepper the many rooms. In addition to a cache of old-house materials, the shopper will find antiques and vintage decorative items. Dealers rent space to sell antique and vintage lamps, furniture and other decorative accessories along one wall of the building.
Inventory changes daily. The various rooms in the cavernous space are filled with hundreds of similar stock. For example, the Hardware Room offers doorknobs of all kinds, hinges, lock plates, doorbells...every drawer is filled to the hilt. An entire floor boasts a collection of 350 antique and vintage bathtubs. The 4-1/2- by 5-foot tubs are most common, but there are larger ones, as well as ornate marble tubs. Yet another room contains cabinets and screen doors. Another is filled with tin ceilings and iron pieces. Especially enchanting is the room overflowing with all kinds of pianos. Did you know old radiators are a huge seller here? Stoves, too.

The checkout counter itself is made from the recessed paneling of an old boat, along with the bar and brass footrest left over from the defunct Inn for All Seasons restaurant in Plymouth. The front door of the business, inlaid with multi-color stained glass, was taken from one of the initial structures that launched their business and reminds the couple of the operation’s humble beginnings.

The Jameses’ foray into salvaging came after the couple moved here from Arizona in January 1998. While visiting her sister in Wareham, Jeanine discovered the Alden Square community of homes behind Bridgewater state prison. Thirty-four homes and other buildings, dating from the 18th to the early 20th century, empty and vandalized, were slated for demolition. Fascinated by what she saw, Jeanine asked to buy the salvage rights. “The architecture was lovely,” she said, “especially since the Southwest is all the same.” A smitten Jeanine saw radical possibilities for the typically dumpster-destined materials. “It was jaw dropping, all the stuff,” agreed Harry, who had owned a salvage yard many years ago back in Oregon.
With no storage space of their own, the Jameses hurriedly transported the furniture, windows, bathtubs, cabinets and chandeliers to Jeanine’s sister’s house. They stored everything in an 18-wheel rented storage trailer, jamming sinks and other weather-resistant stuff underneath the trailer. Soon after, they found their current space in Wareham. New England Demolition & Salvage opened its doors May 2, 1998.

This is recycling on a scale most folks never attain, and this warms the couple’s hearts. “Reduce,” “Reuse,” and “Think Twice” are among their mottoes. “We are such a throwaway society,” says Jeanine, “and you can’t put a price on the history and sentimentality of a piece that goes down from one generation to the next.” The business allows Harry to indulge his collecting habit. Sometimes he’ll want to keep some of the cool stuff for his own home, but remembering smart shop owners must always funnel back into the business, he passes over many interesting pieces that come through the door. For her part, Jeanine enjoys traveling to the houses and meeting people, seeing all their stuff. “You truly have to have a dedication to this way of life,” she says.

The merchandise is not for people who seek unblemished perfection. “Believe it or not, lots of folks come in and say, ‘This has a nick (or scratch) on it’” and try to bring down the price,” says Jeanine.
Perhaps those types really need Home Depot. That’s not to say NEDS inventory is not in great condition – it is. But you definitely come here for history and character. You may find yourself stripping lead paint from old hinges.

NEDS doesn’t send photographs or e-mail images to prospective customers. You need to visit the warehouse in person. And be prepared to transport what you buy. NEDS doesn’t ship merchandise.