Much has changed on Ellicott City's Main Street since the early 1960s. But it's hard to imagine what it would be like today if Ellicott's Country Store and its owner, Enalee E. Bounds, had not remained.
Now, as her antiques and home furnishings shop enters its 41th year, Bounds is just as involved as ever in preserving the town and its historic places.
"She is kind of the patron saint of the neighborhood," said Janet Kusterer, president of Historic Ellicott City Inc., which Bounds helped found.
"Ellicott City wouldn't be the way it is" without her, said Betty Jacobs, whose father owns the only business that has lasted longer - Samuel J. Yates & Son Grocery. Between Bounds and her husband, Roland, "they're always working on the next project to preserve the town," Jacobs said.
But Bounds is quick to note that she wasn't the only one. Many people helped to preserve the B&O; Railroad Station in Ellicott City and other historic structures, she said.
"You can't tell from talking to her the number of things she's done or the influence that she's had," Kusterer said. "Enalee has been involved in so many things, but there isn't anybody who doesn't love Enalee."
The town itself drives Bounds' work.
"Ellicott City just means so much to me," she said.
Her mother, Mildred E. Werner, collected antiques. She saw the historic Walker-Taylor building for rent and told her daughter they should start an antiques store. Bounds agreed, but she insisted on including "all the things that would make a home a home" to round out their business.
"You'll starve to death otherwise," she said.
Bounds suggested a country store like those she saw during her travels in New England with her husband and two children. In October 1962, she opened the store with her sister, Barbara Provenze, and Werner, who worked in the store until she was 90.
Bounds has survived them both: Her mother died in 1998 and her sister died the next year. She declined to give her age because "when you have a business, it's not appropriate. People start to ask you when you're retiring. ... I'm going to be doing this until I'm 100," she said.
Many aspects of the business have endured, from the penny and nickel candy stocked in a glass case on the counter to Bounds' insistence on doing things simply. She uses an antique register with only one button to open the cash drawer, writes outs receipts by hand and owns neither a fax machine nor an answering machine.
The store has never had a sale, she said, because she doesn't sell the mass-marketed items that larger stores move by the carload. She said she might, however, offer discounts over the next year to celebrate the anniversary.
When it opened, Ellicott's Country Store stuck out among the businesses on Main Street. "A lot of people thought we were crazy at the time," Bounds said.
She remembers joining the Ellicott City Businessman's Association - now known by its nongender-specific name, the Ellicott City Business Association. As Bounds and her mother walked into their first meeting, "all the men turned around and looked," she said. "At the time, there weren't many women-oriented businesses."
Today, Ellicott's Country Store features nine rooms with themes on four levels, filled but not crowded with decorator items, antiques and country gifts and accessories. The floors are accessible by curving staircases. Bounds recommends that visitors go up the right side and down the left. "That way you don't miss anything," she said.
It's been said that some of the owners took bets on how long the store would last, but the shop has demonstrated its staying power. Bounds has been invited to move to The Mall in Columbia or Harborplace in Baltimore, but she isn't interested.
"Why would I want to do that, and have a fake country store?" she asked.
Bounds' store is "definitely a destination store for Ellicott City, there's no question," said Barry Gibson of Forget-Me-Not Factory, who served on the board of the Ellicott City Business Association in the 1990s. Customers "come into our store and ask us where the country store is."
And people come from all over. Bounds' guest books boast addresses from Norway, Japan and Jamaica.
The traffic through the town was different in 1962, as well. Farmers came to town on Saturdays, Bounds said, and workers at the courthouse would walk down at lunchtime.
"All the ladies from the country club would go in [Bound's shop] with their little white gloves and whimsies," said Rick Schwedess, 56, of Cottage Antiques. He has known Bounds since he was 9, he said.
People have always brought their decorating questions to her. She opened Ellicott Interiors, an interior design company, after a fire on Main Street in 1992 forced her to renovate the top three floors of her shop.
On a recent Monday morning, Candy Hattenburg of Mount Airy stopped to discuss two throw pillows with Bounds as she manned the counter.
"I can see big blue checked pillows," Bounds said, after hearing about the room's natural "cottage-y" color scheme. "I'm excited already. That's how I get."
Bounds also helped launch Historic Ellicott City Inc., which developed from a committee organizing the celebration of the town's bicentennial in 1972.
Without preservation, "it was just a matter of time before all would be gone," she said.
Bounds published a newspaper periodically for 15 years about Ellicott City and its history.
As president of the group, she also started the decorator show houses 18 years ago to raise money to restore other buildings.
"All old buildings are fabulous in their own way," Bounds said. "If it's been here for 200 years, it has to have been built right."