As you walk into the front doors of Memory Lane Antiques & Decor, you’re met with tons of trinkets, knick-knacks, decorations and other gifts.
As you weave to your left, you’ll make your way past some antique furniture lining the walls and some cards to celebrate whatever special occasion may be coming up.
“But then we come back here,” Stauss said, walking through the office at the back side of the store, into a woodworking shop seemingly twice the size of the storefront. “And it’s a whole other world.”
That other world is where Stauss will be spending his time after May 9, when he has to be completely out of the gift shop.
“Throughout all the years, a big part of my job has been moving the gifts into this place,” Stauss said. “Now, the customer’s job is to unload everything out of here so we can give the next owner a clean pallet.”
People walk into Memory Lane Antiques in Windsor on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Stauss is selling the gift shop, but he will continue his woodworking, restoration and antique business out of the back. He has also agreed with the future owner of the building — a longtime employee of the gift shop who plans on opening a gift shop of her own — to continue featuring his antiques up front.
Stauss opened Memory Lane, 426 Main St., in 1992 after resigning his post as an industrial arts teacher and wrestling coach at Windsor Middle School. He initially focused on the antique furniture and restoration, adding the gift shop the following year.
“We did refinishing of antiques, and we did custom woodworking,” Stauss said. “We did antique shows across the country, and I thought, ‘You know what? Let’s show people that these antiques can go in everyday houses. So let’s start selling gifts and home decor.’ And it blossomed from there.”
Stauss expanded several times, knocking multiple holes in multiple walls into surrounding storefronts he bought, leading to the feeling of walking through the “catacombs,” as he endearingly refers to the maze of rooms that made up the gift shop in its most complex form.
So why is now the time to close that chapter? While Stauss almost wishes it were a more interesting story — “I’m dead broke,” or better yet, “I won the lottery” — he simply believes it is time.
“I have great refinishing customers, because they’re willing to wait for me,” Stauss joked. “But I don’t want to push it. And I don’t want to die and leave my wife a pile of work.”
Sammy Trujillo, one of Stauss's former woodworking students and now a worker at his workshop, works on restoring a piece of furniture in the workshop at Memory Lane Antiques in Windsor on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Stauss has more than enough to keep him busy with the restoration and antiques portion of his business, weaving through his workshop, pulling tarps off numerous different projects in various stages of completion.
“When I opened this up, I was 32 years old. Now I’m 65,” Stauss said. “When you get the Medicare card in the mail, that means it’s official: I’m old. I’d better start thinking of how I’m going to simplify my life. We have a grandchild, our only grandchild, in Chicago, and we want to be able to visit. I’ve only taken three vacations in my life.”
Though Stauss may have had very few days off the past 33 years — last year was the first time he started taking Sundays off, at his wife’s request — he also never truly felt like he had to go “to work.”
“I think I was fortunate. I made my passion into my vocation,” Stauss said. “I’ve always had the same excitement for what I do. When I wake up, I get to go to the store and meet so many neat people.”
His passion for woodworking is what got him into business. But it’s his passion for people that has kept him open and thriving for this long.
“It’s such a pillar in the community,” Adele Lind-Nichols said, after Stauss called to her from across the shop, summoning her for a conversation. “It’s been here for so long.”
Adele Lind-Nichols, a former student of Stauss's from when he was a teacher, shops at Memory Lane Antiques in Windsor on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Lind-Nichols, a former student of Stauss in his teaching days, comes in for the ambience and the people. And, of course, to remind Stauss that he still owes her Dairy Queen from more than three decades ago — something from which she has garnered much more joy than anything from Dairy Queen could provide.
While it’s hard for Stauss to pick a favorite memory from over the years, he has a soft spot for Christmas time. Even when his wife, Theresa, took over ordering responsibilities for the gift shop when she retired from teaching at Greeley’s Heath Middle School in 2016, Stauss insisted on ordering the Christmas options.
“I love working Christmas Eve,” Stauss said. “It’s all the husbands coming in and saying, ’Dan, what does my wife look at?’ They’re on a mission, they’ll almost give me their wallet and say, ‘I don’t care what it is, just find me something. I want to hit a home run tomorrow.’ ”
Stauss has been having more than his fair share of conversations with husbands, wives, former students and longtime customers alike since announcing he will be closing the shop.
“It just makes you feel like you’ve had some really good relationships,” Stauss said. “It’s been a great ride. … It’s been the grace of God, truly. Because nobody needs what I sell.”
The sales floor at Memory Lane Antiques is pictured in Windsor on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026. (Brice Tucker/Staff Photographer)Through May 9, Memory Lane will be open — and Stauss will surely be just one door away if he’s not the first face you see when you walk in.
The shop is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. For more information, go to memlaneantiques.com.
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