In 2017, artist Beth Stoneking and Rockton Lodge #316 Trustee Fred Moore teamed up to create the Kent Flea and Makers Market to raise funds to help maintain the former home of Marvin Kent and to give local craftspeople a venue to offer their artisanal and vintage goods to the community.
Rockton Lodge #316 Trustee Fred Moore and The Kent Flea Coordinator Beth Stoneking. Jeremy Brown/The Portager
The Flea, as it’s known by many of the vendors and beyond, is held on the lawn and on the first floor of the Historic Marvin Kent Home at 409 W. Main Street in Kent from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. the second Saturday of every month, May through October. The market features over 80 vendors that offer arts and crafts, bakery items, vintage goods and more. Food trucks, refreshments and ample parking are provided on the premises, as well.
The building is presently the Kent Masonic Center and the home of lodge #316. Prior to 2017, Moore had thought about starting a flea market there, similar to the Hartville Flea Market, to raise funds to help manage the ongoing maintenance costs of the Marvin Kent Home, but he didn’t know exactly how to make it happen. It wasn’t until Stoneking proposed the idea of having a makers market there that the plan started to come together.
Stoneking had started Stone Hill Farm Custom Shirts and Signs in 2015 and had been vending her crafts at events like the Heritage Festival, the Art & Wine Festival and A Day in the Country at the Randolph Fairgrounds.
Moore had known Stoneking since 1968, when he joined the lodge and met her father and family. When he found out that the ins and outs of craft fairs were in Stoneking’s wheelhouse, they started making plans to get one started at the Masonic Center.
“I found out she was capable of doing something like this, so we just sat down and talked,” Moore said. “I’d thought about having one for years, but nothing ever happened; I didn’t have connections. That’s how it happened. It helps maintain our building.”
Stoneking uses a map of the 84 outdoor plots to strategically place vendors where they won't be next to another vendor that is selling similar items. Jeremy Brown/The Portager
Money from The Flea goes into the lodge’s general fund and is used for projects when the need arises. Recently, The Flea funds were used for the installation of a synthetic slate replica roof with a 50-year warranty that was contracted out to RoofTechPro Ltd in Canton; the building previously had a 26-year-old shingle roof that was failing. The synthetic slate shingles are similar to the original slate shingles used on the roof, but they are much cheaper and quicker to install.
Moore has been the maintenance man at the Masonic Center since 1980 and has saved the lodge countless thousands of dollars doing repairs such as painting, plumbing and general maintenance, but now that The Flea is bringing in money for the lodge, they can do repairs that they would otherwise have had to postpone.
After Stoneking and Moore discussed the details of having a craft fair at the Masonic Center, they teamed up with Moore’s wife, Barb; Stoneking’s sisters, Amy Rose and Diane Ludick; and longtime lodge member Dick Schoppelrey and his wife, Ida. Together, they organized the effort to start The Kent Flea.
The Flea is run by the lodge, and Stoneking is the official coordinator. She also sells her custom-made T-shirts and woodcrafts there, which are inspired by Kent, the town she grew up in and loves. Ludick runs Stoneking’s booth during the market, while Stoneking assists vendors and keeps The Flea running smoothly.
The Flea’s beginning
Stoneking started promoting vending spots at The Flea during the winter of 2017. By the time the first market in May rolled around, there were 50 vendors selling their crafts to a steady flow of shoppers. The show has grown every year since then, with 65 to 70% of vendors returning in following years.
Marvin Kent had the first initial of his last name carved on all four sides of the staircase newel post on the first floor. Jeremy Brown/The Portager
Both Moore and Stoneking have a long history and emotional connection with the historic Marvin Kent home. It’s an old building with unrivaled character and is highly deserving of care and preservation. It was constructed between 1880 and 1884 in the Italianate style. The building has double-layer, inner brick walls on the first floor and remarkable hand-carved wood ornamentation on hinged doors, pocket doors, fireplaces and stair rails. There was a Victorian ornamental wrought iron fence surrounding the perimeter of the property, but it was removed in 1917 and used for armament during the First World War. It was later partially replaced with a brick wall that is still there today.
Marvin Kent was the first charter member of Rockton Lodge #316. When his son William Kent died in 1923, the home was sold to the lodge.
The lodge meeting room on the third floor was originally a ballroom for the Kent family. Jeremy Brown/The Portager
Moore, 85, became a member of Rockton lodge #316 in 1968, at which time he became acquainted with Stoneking’s father, a fellow lodge member. At that time, Stoneking’s father, James Clark, was the caretaker of the building. He would take his two youngest daughters, Stoneking and Ludick, with him to play in the building while he did maintenance chores.
“My dad was a member of the lodge for 60 years,” Stoneking said. “When my sister and I were little, he would take us with him there while he mowed grass and did all kinds of stuff. My mom was working, so my dad took us with him and we would play in the building. We just loved that building and my dad did, too. I remember that my dad was always worried about the care of the building and how much it cost. He passed away [about 10 years ago] and then I was there one day and they had an event and I was talking to Fred Moore, who was the caretaker at the time and good friends with my dad, and I said, ‘We should have a craft show,’ and he said, ‘OK,’ and I laid out all the plans and figured it all out, because I’d been doing artisan shows for years.”
As children, Stoneking and Ludick remember sliding down the handcarved rail in the Masonic Center, playing in the meticulously preserved President’s room where Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft and Warren G. Harding stayed and hiding from their dad amidst the meeting room chairs as he vacuumed. They recollect how the second-floor billiard room chairs with the high backrests made them feel like kings and queens when they sat in them.
The Masonic Center billiard room was put in after the lodge bought the building in 1923.
“It brings back real magical memories. Our dad would be there cleaning or taking care of the building and we’d be there playing, crawling around different places. We just got to go around the building, and there were so many fun things to look at. We would explore down to the basement, but it was creepy,” Ludick said. “Back in the day when everybody smoked and he’d have to clean up the sand ashtrays and make a special design [in the sand] with a comb, or something, I just remember how nice they looked after he got done taking care of them.”
Although the Rockton Lodge #316 is a men’s only lodge, her mother, Eloise Clark, helped during its events, such as dinners, picnics and its annual Christmas Party, and she and James Clark were both members of The Order of the Eastern Star, an affiliate body of the Masonic Lodge that is open to both men and women.
“At Christmas, they would have a Christmas party and Santa would be upstairs on the third floor in those big chairs. The parents would bring their kids a present. Our mom would always get those Life Saver books; that’s what we would get from Santa Claus there at the party,” Ludick said.
The Flea today
Nowadays, The Flea is an even larger bazaar with 84 outdoor plots where vendors pack the lawn with tents, under which they deploy their unique collections of handmade items that include glassware, ceramics, clothing, lawn and home decor and even some vintage items here and there. And there are plenty of snack items and food trucks, too. If someone isn’t in the mood for shopping, they can also tour the first floor of the historic Marvin Kent home.
Dough Luxe Sweets owner Andrea Slepoy said her number one seller at The Flea are her cake buckets. They come in several flavors, one of the most popular being the Elvis cake bucket, which is banana cake in a 10 ounce bucket topped with peanut butter cream frosting and chocolate drizzle. Another flavor she said people really like are the strawberry crush buckets that are made with vanilla cake, strawberry compote and vanilla butter cream frosting. She also makes scones, cinnamon rolls and cookies.
Slepoy first met Stoneking in December 2025 at The Kent Flea Holiday Show, which spans two venues: the Masonic Center and the adjacent First Christian Church.
“I had such a good experience at the Christmas show at the church across the street that I decided to do the Flea and it’s been great and I love it. The first Flea in May I sold out and I did really well this last month also,” Slepoy said. “First of all, I love that they support the Marvin Kent home. She [Stoneking] explained to me why it’s so important to her growing up with her dad and going there with her sisters. I think something like that is really important in Kent, to be able to maintain it. Being that we can bring people in and sell our stuff there and raise money to keep a structure like that going is important, especially for the Masons, too. I’ve met a lot of great people. It’s been a really good experience for me.”
When Slepoy isn’t at The Flea, she operates Dough Luxe Sweets out of a roadside stand at her home on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at 4347 Rootstown Road in Rootstown.
KM Designer Boards owner Keith Miller. Jeremy Brown/The Portager
Makings By MaryJ owners Mary Richmond and her daughters, Katie Mahnke and Elizabeth Taylor, have been selling their unique crocheted creations at The Flea for three years now. Their handiwork includes custom bags, blankets, pillows, stuffed animals and items inspired by flowers – and even the supernatural.
“I make a lot of cryptids: that’s my favorite thing to make, like the minotaurs, dragons, Bigfoot, yetis, those types of things,” Richmond said. “Katie makes a lot of stuffie animals. She just started making zoo animals: dogs, snakes. Elizabeth, she does both. She does wisteria hangers; that’s her biggest seller right now. She does spiders and frogs. They started with the granny square bags and it’s blossomed. Katie made the two afghans that are on our display right now. I’ve made some rose bouquet blankets, that when you fold it up, it looks like a rose bouquet, and I just finished a popcorn bucket blanket, so when you fold it up it looks like a bucket of popcorn, like movie theater popcorn.”
Mary Richmond said she and her daughters have chosen the same plot at The Flea ever since they started selling there three years ago. This year, Makings By MaryJ added ogres, orcs, cylopes and an assortment of zoo animals to its repertoire of crocheted creatures. Mary said the zoo animals and the hanging Wisteria are among their best sellers. [submitted photo].
The first year that Richmond and her daughters sold at the Flea, they paid for their plot by the month, but that year went so well, they decided to pay for the full year all at once from then on. They’ve amassed a strong clientele at The Flea. Lately, they’ve been getting a lot of requests for custom work. More recently, Stoneking requested that Makings By MaryJ create crocheted black squirrels, because she thought they would suit the Kent market; Richmond said she can’t keep them on the table because they sell so fast.
Because Makings By MaryJ offers a diverse range of crocheted items, their customer base includes people of all ages.
“The people are just so friendly. The college students, the families that come, the elderly. I love to see the families,” Richmond said. “We sold a little bee to a little girl one weekend, and she came back the next month and she said, ‘hey, that’s where my bee was born.’ Of course, it just melted our hearts.”