Antique Row: A Field Guide to Ivanhoe’s Vintage Corridor
Import warehouses, a record store with 250,000 45s, an heirloom jeweler and a wine bar hiding in a furniture showroom — the North Orange Avenue hunt, mapped.
3 minute read
Before Ivanhoe Village had breweries, brunch rankings or a Main Street logo, it had Antique Row: the stretch of North Orange Avenue across from Lake Ivanhoe where Orlando came to buy other people’s furniture, records and memories. The name stuck because the trade never left. Today the row is the soul of Ivanhoe Village — a walkable run of vintage warehouses, import showrooms, record bins and gift shops where the hunting is the entertainment. Here is how to work it.
The warehouse end: Washburn Imports and the big rooms
Start where the scale is largest. Washburn Imports, at 1800 N. Orange Ave., fills its showroom with one-of-a-kind pieces its buyers hunt across India, Indonesia and Thailand — hand-painted Indian door panels, carved wood figures, Bali glass, statement furniture under high ceilings. It is part store, part expedition, and after dark its identity doubles: the showroom is also home to The Imperial wine bar, so the credenza you admired at noon can hold your wine glass at seven. Other dealers along the avenue keep the traditional flame — mid-century furniture, estate pieces, barware and the gloriously unclassifiable — in storefronts that reward slow looking. The rule of the row: if a shop looks packed to the rafters, that is a recommendation, not a warning.
The soundtrack: Rock & Roll Heaven
Every antique district has one shop that becomes a pilgrimage site. On Orange Avenue it is Rock & Roll Heaven, at 1814 N. Orange Ave., dealing in recorded music since 1977 and run for most of that span by brothers Freddy and Ray Ehmen. The inventory is the stuff of crate-digger legend: new and used LPs across every genre, dollar bins packed with hidden gems, and a collection of more than 250,000 45s — plus CDs, cassettes, DVDs, VHS, laserdiscs and 8-tracks for the format completists. Staff knowledge is encyclopedic and freely given. Budget an hour you did not plan to spend; everyone does.
The small finds
Between the anchors, the row’s smaller shops do the gift-and-keepsake work. Maffrey’s, at 1225 N. Orange Ave., curates a consciously quirky collection of gifts and goods that makes it the district’s easiest birthday-save. YAY! Tiny Shop, at 1211 N. Orange Ave., packs a tiny storefront with work by local artists — candles, prints, handbags, jewelry — and marks the southern start of the boutique run overlooking the lake. Dora Mae Jewelry, at 1620 N. Orange Ave., works a different vintage seam entirely: an heirloom studio that breathes new life into antique jewelry, resetting family stones into modern pieces alongside its own ready-to-wear collection.
Why the row survived
Antique districts die in most cities — priced out by the very character they created. Ivanhoe’s survived because the buildings stayed small, the dealers stayed independent and the lake across the street kept the whole corridor feeling like a place rather than a strip. The district’s Main Street program leans into the heritage rather than apologizing for it, and the newer arrivals — the brewery on Alden Road, the wine bar inside the furniture store, the gift shops working in miniature — all trade in the same currency as the antique dealers: objects with a past, chosen by a person, sold by someone who can tell you where they came from. That continuity is why the row reads as a neighborhood instead of a theme.
How to hunt the row
Go in the morning, when the light is good and the dealers are fresh, and start with breakfast at White Wolf Cafe at the row’s north end — our Ivanhoe Village guide lays out the full day. Work south on foot; the whole run is walkable, and the lake across the street keeps your bearings. Bring measurements of the room you’re furnishing and a hard head about the difference between “vintage” and “old” — the good shops here know it and price honestly. Then finish the way the row intends: a glass of wine among the imports at The Imperial, deciding whether the piece you circled twice is coming home with you. It usually is. More of the district’s pleasures are gathered on the Top Spots Map.
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