Midcentury Mecca

Seavey’s Marketplace owner Michael Kierstead with his longtime operations manager, Susie Leahey.

For reasons that are all too familiar now, a retail business launched in the Covid-riddled fall of 2020 would have seemed destined to fail. But Seavey’s Marketplace, started at the time on Court Street, in Portsmouth, not only thrived from the beginning but grew strategically and is still going strong — same city, different location.

Five years ago, Michael Kierstead, newly retired from the corporate world, was determined to figure out a part-time business endeavor that would allow him the flexibility he needed as the stay-at-home parent of a 2-year-old. “I thought I would start this little vintage store in downtown Portsmouth and see how it went,” says Kierstead, explaining that as a young boy growing up in Claremont, he would accompany his antiques dealer father — “a collector of all things” — on frequent visits to coin shows, auctions, flea markets and the like. By the time he reached adulthood, he had amassed a sizeable collection of vintage glassware and some antiques he wanted to sell.

Home staging is a fast-growing sector of Seavey’s business.

Here’s where karma stepped in: a retail space was available in the Hobbs Building, the very place where Kier-stead’s grandmother, Barbara Seavey, had once worked for Portsmouth insurance executive Paul Hobbs. On a wing and a prayer, Seavey’s Marketplace was born.

Early on, Kierstead, who has an MBA from the University of New Hampshire, had enough success to feel comfortable extending his initial 4-month lease (ultimately, he stayed 1.5 years), time enough to think ahead and determine the direction he wanted the business to take. “Even though we had a really positive response, we found that there’s a very small supply of good-quality used furniture,” he says. Seavey’s switched to selling replica midcentury furniture for which there was a strong demand. “Because Portsmouth is growing so fast, and the living spaces are getting smaller and smaller, midcentury style is a really great fit for that market.” He was surprised that most of his customers were, and still are, empty-nesters, not the 20- and 30-somethings he expected.

“Our customers are couples or individuals, mostly who’ve downsized, sold their big family home, relocated to this area and bought a brand-new, 1,500-square-foot condominium to furnish,” says Kierstead. “They love the scale, style and customer service.”

While Kierstead has a number of part-timers on his payroll, essentially, it’s just him and Susie Leahey, a neighbor he recruited when he first opened the store, who make up the customer-facing team, and it’s a solid partnership. “Susie is my retail guru and has a very good eye,” says Kierstead. “She balances out my style, which tends to be more masculine and minimalist. She’s the exact opposite.”

In just five years, Seavey’s Marketplace has grown from a small startup in downtown Portsmouth to a 4,000-square-foot retail showroom in the city’s West End, where Kierstead has expanded his domestic furniture offerings, and has begun offering custom upholstery and design services. Home staging, he says, represents 20% of their business.  “Brick-and-mortar doesn’t work on its own,” he says. “You have to be extremely customer focused, you have to be agile, and you have to have other means of leveraging that business outside of the brick-and-mortar.” That said, if you happen to be in Portsmouth and are a fan of midcentury pieces, a visit to Seavey’s Marketplace is a feast for the eyes not to be missed. And based on the store’s history of evolving, it soon may grow once more. “I would like to be bigger and offer more choice,” says Kierstead. “I have plans; I’m just waiting for the right time.