Boot Town opens up in Belmont

BELMONT — With the Lakes Region hosting one of the largest motorcycle shows in the entire country, it would be expected to have stores for everything needed to ride a motorcycle. To that end, Julie Rector, owner of Bear Hollow Trading Post in Andover, opened Boot Town last week at Belknap Marketplace, selling motorcycle boots and other footwear and accessories.

Rector, from Lewiston, Maine, has been selling motorcycle boots for 33 years, which was not something she could have anticipated when she was younger. She and her mother used to sell crafts together when Rector was a kid, things like tied flies and feathered earrings. Eventually, Rector decided to go to college in Maine. Between jobs after college, she decided to help her mother sell craft jewelry at motorcycle swap meets. As she’d never sold at such a show before, she took the opportunity to meet and talk with this new group of people. After only seeing one pair of Harley-Davidson motorcycle boots at another table, she began doing research and realized there was a big demand for boots and few people selling them.

Rector toured the country’s bike events selling boots. She was a vendor at 35 shows each year, including some of the biggest: Daytona Beach, Sturgis, Myrtle Beach, Americade, and of course, Laconia.

“I actually started out with 48 pairs of Dingo boots. That was my first boot purchase,” Rector said. “Then I bought Harley-Davidson boots, and then I became the No. 4 Harley-Davidson boot retailer in the country as of 2010.”

Rector got tired of life on the road. She was never home and was unable to find a place to settle down.

“Thirty-three years on the road took its toll on my body. It's hard,” Rector said. “If I can convert a lot of what I've done and learned over the years and put it into a store that's in a much higher traffic area, I could build this and make this a winner, too.”

And that is exactly what she did. Before Boot Town, she opened a store in Salem before moving her business to Andover, where she started the Bear Hollow Trading Post, which she calls “this little tourist resort." And they had boots, leather T-shirts, gifts, "and eventually an ice cream store called Naughty Nellie’s. There used to be a cafe which eventually closed."

People would often ask her why she sold ice cream with her leather boots. Her answer always prompted a laugh.

“Because it all comes from cows,” she said.

Rector thought she had the opportunity to reach more people by opening a store in the Lakes Region. But her vision for this store is different than her shop in Andover.

“This is the concept store over here in Belmont that I've been wanting to do this side of [Interstate] 93, where we do a blend of work boots, loggers, bikers, cowboy the cowboy hats and work wear all in one place.”

Rector, over the 30 years she has been in business selling motorcycle boots, has been consistently buying a variety of manufacturers and has built relationships with them. As the years went on, she realized the brands were selling an even wider variety of boots, which piqued her interest to add them to her inventory and expand her consumer base.

Her reputation as a boot retailer is stronger than ever. People have already visited her new store, ecstatic she is now selling in the area as a brick-and-mortar location.

But despite her success in the past three decades, this new location is only permanent if the community is receptive to it. She hopes everyone who is pleased with their purchases and experience from her store will spread the word.

“It's a New Hampshire business. I'm not a big corporate, from out-of-state building another chain store,” Rector said. “I'm just a single owner trying to make it work.”

Entering the holiday season, Rector believes a great gift for family, friends and loved ones is a good ol' pair of boots.

“People always need boots,” she said. “Do you walk around in the snow with your flip flops? No, you wear boots. We have winter boots.”

After working with boots for most of her life, Rector has come to appreciate the craft of the shoes. She believes a stop at her store will allow other people to see what makes boots so special.

"They're pieces of art to me,” Rector said. “When hands have made them, put them together, somebody cared about what they made, and I appreciate that.”