No trip to Ohio would complete without an outing to the mother ship of all baskets, the Longaberger Homestead near Frazeysburg about an hour east of Columbus.
Along the way is some seriously pretty scenery. Now imagine this…east of Columbus we’re starting to get into foothill territory. A mountain is to the left and all of a sudden out of a flat valley terrain appears a huge office building in the shape of the Longaberger market basket on the right. What a really cool building…and so unexpected just after being in downtown Newark, OH. Twenty miles beyond that on a really nice highway is the homestead.
OK, I must confess…before I knew Julia and Ms. Pat, I didn’t have a clue what Longaberger was or why someone would collect baskets. A very short and intense period of education and I’m about as big a basket geek as there is. I’m not quite to their level (Ms. Pat sells ’em, after all)…but I’m a quite enthusiastic amateur. When I got to the homestead, it was plainly obvious that the idiot we encountered outside of Aunt Catfish’s who hated the baskets his wife collected was just that…a blithering idiot. I was not alone at Longaberger Central (and you know the place is cool when you’re hauling bags out to the Escape and you get cheers for doing well in the shops!). So a word to the wise for those guys out there who are introduced to Longaberger baskets by their significant others: really pay attention to WHY they love these baskets and find ways to use them. You will not have to work hard…I kitted out my home office with several of the baskets and wrought iron items and that was just the start. And maybe, just maybe…Karen won’t have to lament about what it takes to snare a guy who not only loves the baskets but is willing to give them as gifts. We’re not alone…just ask Gramps! He has yet to break my record show…but I wouldn’t put it past him!
Are you getting the impression that Mommy and Daddy can really do some damage here? Are you getting the impression that Grammy could be as dangerous if not more so here? Good…you’ve got the picture.
The homestead itself is a combination show place for the baskets (I think the main store went to Grammy’s house and ripped off her wood architecture for the interior wood fixtures!) as well as manufacturing facility. So not only can you get anything and everything Longaberger here (except, not surprisingly…the baskets other than the homestead exclusives!) and you can also tour the factory and the Crawford Barn. We didn’t do that as our main objective was unabashed consumerism…we’ll hit the factory next time. I wouldn’t mind turning my hand to actually weaving a basket (and they have people there to help you out so you don’t make too much of a fool of yourself…ah, they know Daddy well!).
Nicholas made it apparent that he wanted a bottle soon after getting to the store so I parked us at the stage and got a concert for my troubles. Jordan (one of the singers) really played to the kids in the audience inviting one of the youngsters up on stage with her. Nicholas, not to be outdone, kicked into cute baby mode extraordinaire and actually started flirting with her. You want to know something?
IT WORKED!
Five months and he’s already got one hook, line, and sinker. But alas, it was a short-lived romance…all of about 10-20 seconds, I would think. Then it was back to his love affair with this bottle- shaped contraption that says Avent Naturally! on the side. One prodigious belch later, we were on our way to exploring the main homestead store.
The store itself is a series of rooms in this rather large building, each of which has a special purpose. One is for the Woven Memories basket, another for the Golf Club basket, yet another for the Boyd’s Bears that go with the baskets, and a huge kitchen area for the pottery/utensils. Those two baskets are only available at the homestead…you can’t get them anywhere else (if you discount EBAY, that is). There’s more areas than you can shake a stick at and each of them are themed and kitted out with the baskets and the accessories.
Shopping can sure take it out of you…and we don’t mean in just the wallet. Though this place did a good job making us lighter in that department. Longaberger ain’t cheap…in materials or cost. But the nice thing is that these baskets are pretty much built to last for generations so no, they’re not going to be equivalent to the el cheapo Easter baskets you can get at Wally World. To be honest, it’s the essential accessories that go with the baskets that really bulk up the price tag but a well-maintained basket (particularly retired ones!) can fetch a pretty penny. So after the first round of ka-ching (!), Daddy played a good rendition of Igor and fetched those many bags out to the Escape. You know you’ve hit a capitalist hot-spot when you get applause and cheers and good on ya as you’re walking out to the parking lot burdened by many bags!
After a while, hunger decided to assert itself so we sashayed our way to the homestead restaurant. Imagine Cracker Barrel’s food (only better) crossed with tables kitted out with (you guessed it) Longaberger plates, tableware, and a basket or two. Nicholas was ready for his next bottle and was not a happy camper as we waited for it to heat up. But when it was ready, he certainly changed his tune for the better.
Once we had done as much damage at the homestead as we could, it was time to head east to Dresden where the entire enterprise started. Unbeknownst to us, it was Dresden’s Oktoberfest on the same day so it was definitely crowded. Not that it doesn’t get traffic without festivals…there are tour companies that do nothing but take people to the homestead and Dresden. And you can definitely see who is buttering the bread in this town…pretty much every store has either retired baskets, liners, or custom-fitted lids to fit on the baskets. There were plenty of stalls set up selling baskets as well.
Taking a stroller into some of the shops was an interesting exercise in physics and brute strength. Of course, one nice lady pointed out the wheelchair ramp after we had crossed the threshhold. Gee, thanks! 🙂
Longaberger maintains an official store in Dresden and it’s here that you can get the third exclusive basket in the area…not surprisingly, the Dresden basket which became Daddy’s souvenir for his first trip to the homestead. It’s got a nice lid with a coin slot and is a great place to dump change that will ultimately end up in Nicholas’ bank account (OK, we had to snarf some for the tolls in West Virginia… we didn’t know they took actual cash! Please forgive us…)
You can imagine how tired we were when we got back to Columbus…and how much we were looking forward to packing the Escape for the return voyage. And the sad thing is that we didn’t do everything we could at the homestead…a happier thought is that I think it’s well-nigh impossible to do it all in a day and do it justice.
