Some teenagers hide poor report cards, provocative clothing or high cell phone bills from their parents. Nick Drummond hides household appliances from his mother.
‘‘She’s just kind of getting sick of so much stuff,” the 17-year-old Laurel resident said of his vintage appliance hobby. ‘‘So it’s gotten to the point where I have to smuggle in vintage appliances. There might be a little vintage blender hiding behind the refrigerator, for example.”
Drummond, a 2008 graduate of St. Vincent Pallotti High School, has been interested in antique household items since the sixth grade.
‘‘When you’re looking at authentic vintage stuff ... these old houses and even these old objects has a history to it and I love that,” he said. ‘‘Back in the 1950s someone was using that. It’s kind of a window into the past.”
Drummond, who said he developed an admiration for the craftsmanship and durability of older items on his own, currently boasts ownership of 50 or so vacuums from as long ago as the 1930s and roughly the same number of toasters, toasting ovens and blenders. His bedroom set is an original 1920s Art Deco set.
But Drummond’s most prominent vintage obsession is classic cars, of which he currently owns three: a 1988 Ford Festiva, a 1956 BMW Isetta and a 1961 Imperial Crown, whose arrival from a former home in Utah he is currently awaiting.
‘‘I’ve always liked vintage cars, the style. I’m very much an aesthetic person,” Drummond said. ‘‘The lines and the ... aerodynamics, I just love that.”
When Drummond turned 16, his mother wanted to buy him a big, safe, modern car—but Drummond instead chose as his first automobile a 1980 HMV Freeway with three wheels, a single-cylinder engine and one seat.
Though Drummond does not do ‘‘big restorations” himself, he enjoys purchasing cars and having them restored piecemeal, sending the engine to another state for repair and the windows to a local shop, for example.
Drummond’s family helps with the cost of the cars and reaped a benefit when Drummond sold the Freeway a few years ago for $4,000, several thousand more than he had paid for it.
But there are some cars—such as the Festiva that he decorated himself using household paint—he has vowed never to sell.
‘‘When we got it, it was this hideous, ugly, little death-trap,” he said with a laugh. ‘‘Now it’s this amazing art-car death trap.”
The car gets approximately 40 miles to the gallon and he has driven it to Massachusetts and Canada.
Drummond’s mother has come around to his hobby, despite its crowding effect on her home.
‘‘I think it’s fascinating—he points out a lot of beauty that I didn’t see personally,” said Julie Berbakov Rossi. ‘‘He kind of turned me onto Victorian homes and everything else. He’s told me why some cars are engineered better than some others. He does constant research. ... I see a future for him with all this.”
Drummond will unite his love of cars with his love of vintage appliances next month, when he will drive his Isetta to the 2008 Vacuum Land Convention in North Canton, Ohio. The meeting is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the North Canton-based Hoover Company, one of the vacuum’s early pioneers.
Drummond, who will attend the University of Maryland, College Park in the fall and major in historical architecture, does most of his vintage-item shopping in thrift stores and online. Even though he regularly uses his vacuums and blenders, much of his collection’s appeal is not of the practical variety.
He recently purchased a 1961 Singer sewing machine for $18 because the style reminded him of a rocket.
Fellow Pallotti graduate Laura Wellford, 18, called Drummond her most unique friend.
‘‘His hobbies are definitely pretty interesting,” she said. ‘‘I think the vacuums are the [most interesting] because I’ve never heard of anyone collecting those before. He’s even demonstrated them for me.”
Asked if Drummond had inspired her to become a collector, Wellford said with a laugh, ‘‘I think he collects enough for the both of us. He’s definitely going to be a great architect.”
E-mail Anath Hartmann at ahartmann@gazette.net.
