Valley couple set to transform historic Gramma’s House Antiques building

Arizona native Thomas Lopez was going about his business fixing municipal pools when he noticed a two-story building—Gramma’s House Antiques and Treasures—beside one of Miami’s five historic bridges.

“I fell in love with that particular building because it was next to one of the Luten Arches, which are cool-looking, and the facade was charming,” Lopez says. “It had the outside attraction that reminded me of the House of Joy, which is one of the historic beacons and landmarks of Jerome.”

The House of Joy is a two-story building perched high atop the winding road to Mingus Mountain that was once a brothel, but is currently an art gallery in that iconic copper mining town.

While the Miami structure built in 1912 was not a house of joy in the biblical sense, it spent more than 20 years as an antique store, and prior to that, was Wilson’s Paint & Wallpaper store. A misprint in a commercial listing showing it as Wilton’s Paint and Wallpaper is why the current owners named their business The Wilton. 

Turns out the spin on the name is appropriate. The name Wilton, in old English means “by the stream,” which is fitting since the property sits next to Bloody Tanks Wash and one of the famous Luten arches in town. (PHOTO)

Now that Lopez is the building’s owner, he and his partner Mitch Phillips are in the process of clearing out decades of antique collecting and buried personal items of the former owners to create The Wilton Lounge. The pair hope to participate in Miami’s “Renaissance” and help preserve a piece of local history that sits beside one of five historic bridges in town.

Lopez was born and raised in Phoenix and “landed in the pool industry” in 1992 when he worked construction. Since then, he has become an innovator in the industry after establishing his own business in 2005. He has developed a line of swimming pool-related products—most notably Pool Patch—and specializes in municipal pool repair.

Most of his business is done online, but fixing pools is what originally brought him to the Copper Corridor, when Freeport-McMoRan hired him to do some work on the Cobre Valley Recreation Center pool. From there, the Town of Miami brought him back last October to work on Hostetler Pool and that is when he found an affinity for the historic aspects of the town.

“It reminds me a little bit of other mining areas like Jerome, which is a place we have investments in,” Lopez says. “I saw buildings that looked abandoned or not fully developed and started asking some of the locals about stuff that was for sale.”

He ended up purchasing the building and began the arduous task of rehabilitating the high-profile structure.

Phillips, his partner of 18 years, is the artistic drive behind The Wilton and brings her own unique bonafides to the mix.

She moved from rural Minnesota to Phoenix 30 years ago and started her own interior design company in the Valley more than 20 years ago. Phillips has done both residential and commercial design throughout the state, including extensive work for Grand Canyon University, the original Jerome Winery, Cellar 433 in Cottonwood and a decade ago opened a vintage clothing store in the Sunnyslope neighborhood of Phoenix that has gone online in the wake of COVID.

“We still have the building, but we shut it down and I just sell online,” she says. “I do pop-ups down in Tucson and in the Valley and that led me into doing styling for fashion shoots for fashion magazines as well.”

As a result of that work, she even picked up a gig working for UFC fighter Sugar Sean O’Malley.

“I style him for his events when he does appearances,” Phillips explains. “So I have a little variety in my background and I even do art shows every year here in Phoenix.”

History and rural Arizona are at the forefront of the pair’s businesses and lives. Lopez runs his pool business out of the Charles and Eleanor Abel House on Cave Creek Road. It was built in 1930 by Charles H. Abels, a World War I veteran who homesteaded 80 acres in 1921, in the area then known as Cactus, Arizona. It was the first house in Sunnyslope with a bomb shelter that also served as a basement.

The partners also own two houses in Jerome they are renovating, so they have a lot of experience working in rural communities and maintaining the historic aspects of iconic buildings.

“I am familiar with rural Arizona and how it can be a scary thing for an outsider to come in,” Lopez says. “We purchased in Jerome, and we’ve been there over three years and have gotten very connected, even though we’re not technically living in the community. It takes some time to build that faith that you will do the right thing and not exploit them in a way they won’t appreciate. I have a pretty good understanding of what to do and what not to do and how to do the right thing for the community.”

The work so far has been difficult. Lopez and Phillips have combed through rooms full of flotsam and jetsam collected over the decades while maintaining full-time jobs in the Valley. They have carefully sorted family heirlooms belonging to the previous owners and hauled out six 30-yard dumpsters full of random detritus.

Their plan is to rehabilitate the upstairs living quarters so they have a place to stay when they are in town and hope to open the doors on the wine bar and lounge within the next year.

While Lopez has his own ideas, the project will largely be driven by Phillips’ vision, but she is mum on the details and wants the final product to speak for itself.

“I have the plans in my mind, and the whole idea of what’s gonna look like, but I want to leave an element of surprise,” Phillips says.” I don’t want to give away what I’m going to do inside until the reveal, but it’s going to be very cozy and I’m gonna work in the history of Globe-Miami into some design, but I can’t say what that is.”