After Wiscasset Village Antiques’ owners cut a ribbon on the business at 536 Bath Road on July 24, manager Sparky Lindsey said she was feeling like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Lindsey was also the longtime manager of the new business’ predecessor Avalon Antiques, which occupied the same building, and at one point had 100 dealers renting space.

John Travolta, Barbra Streisand and Martha Stewart had all visited. But Avalon Antiques owner Bill Belmore was the driving force force behind his business; and after his death in 2013, it took a downturn, Lindsey said. Dealers dropped to about 70 this year, and plans called for the business to close by June, she said.

Now thanks to one of the remaining dealers and a friend of his, the business has a new start, with a new name, improvements to the property and already an uptick back to 85 dealers.

The dealer who stepped in was Westport Island’s Danny Lester, one of Belmore’s fellow dealers in a Nobleboro shop when Belmore decided to have his own business in Wiscasset. Lester became one of its first dealers and has never left, at times serving as a clerk or assistant manager.

But, to save the business and make it his own, Lester needed a business partner. Friend and fellow Westport Island resident Rick Moore, a former restaurateur and club owner in San Diego, joined him in buying the business from Belmore’s widow Pam Belmore, and leasing the property from Gordon and Rob Nichols, Moore and Lester said. They have an option to buy the property within five years, but hope to do it within two years, Moore said.

“It looked like a good opportunity,” Moore said. “I love the (dealers). I feel like I have 80 grandmothers now.”

Lindsey and a dealer couple at the business, Bill and Ruth Garland of Jefferson, said Moore and Lester are giving the business what it needs: advertising, repairs to the parking lot and room to grow.

The advertising is especially needed in today’s market where collectors sell many antiques online that they used to sell to dealers, and where fewer young people take an interest in antiques, the Garlands said.

“You need more than drive-by traffic,” Ruth Garland said. She and her husband have been in antiques for about 38 of the 47 years they’ve been married.

The business now has two trucks bought at Wiscasset Ford for deliveries; plus the lettering on them makes good advertising, Moore said. Unused space upstairs is being renovated for another 1,200 square feet of sales space, bringing the total to about 16,000 square feet; and Lester just finished painting the building’s exterior.

“Lots of days and lots of nights,” he said.

The improvements also include a new sign with the new name and a ship as an homage to the Hesper and Luther Little. In total, Moore estimates all the improvements and the trucks together cost about $100,000.

Wiscasset Area Chamber of Commerce representatives, Town Planner Jamel Torres and Wiscasset selectmen Judy Flanagan, Ben Rines Jr. and David Cherry took part in Friday’s ribbon-cutting.

“It’s wonderful to see young folks taking the reins and doing business in town,” Flanagan said afterward.

Wiscasset Village Antiques’ summer hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week. The phone number is 207-882-4029.