Gertrude Stein, the renowned author and art collector who lived in Paris most of her life, famously said of Oakland, Calif., the place where she spent her childhood, “There is no there there.” America is full of placeless places, the kind of communities or neighborhoods you could be parachuted into and, because they are so homogenized and soulless, you’d have no idea where you were.

Vashon isn’t one of them. And yet there have been losses. There used to be lots of “theres” here on Vashon Island, by which I mean small but distinct communities anchored by the kinds of businesses and services that act as the pivots around which community life revolves. But with the construction of Vashon Highway linking north and south and the decline of the 30 steamer docks served by the Mosquito Fleet, Vashon Town became the Island’s hub — itself an oddity among islands, as it’s not on a harbor.

Only Burton survived this consolidation. And it thrives today. Clustered around the southernmost blinking red light on the Island are the kind of enterprises that help define a community: a branch post office so small three people make a crowd; a church, the Burton Shell garage which, somewhat perversely, sells no gas, Shell or otherwise; a fire and rescue station whose drivers have the good manners to hold the sirens until they clear the neighborhood, a whimsically eclectic antiques store; and a wood stove entrepreneur, to name a just few.

Yes, the Quartermaster Inn’s beloved restaurant has closed, as has the bright and airy Silverwood Gallery. But Burton is hardly on the decline.

Indeed, three new businesses are in the process of opening. In a few months, in the historic Masonic Temple building that housed Silverwood, business partners Kassana Holden, a fabric designer, and Amanda Winn, a sales and marketing consultant, will unveil Bergamot Studio LLC (www.bergamotstudio.com), a state of the art digital fabric printing company, and Flourish Home Décor, a gallery and shop featuring Holden’s work.

Across Burton Drive, in the Quarter-master Inn’s remodeled dining room, Hallie Aldrich has already opened Movement Intelligence, a handsomely equipped Pilates studio in which she will also offer massage and other therapeutic services (www.movement-intelligence.com).

And any day now, Windi Pinoges will open her new hair salon, the Chop Shop, in a former storefront opposite the Burton Shell.

These commercial tidal shifts notwithstanding, two enterprises still act as anchors of community continuity: the Burton Coffee Stand and the Harbor Mercantile.

The Burton Coffee Stand was established in the early 1990s by Rob Milligan, but since New Year’s Day 2000, it has been owned and guided by Kathy Kush. Charming, lovely, irrepressibly gracious, she has an encyclopedic memory for her customers’ preferred brews. Her weekend replacements — the exotic, ironic Anna and the preternaturally calm Shannon — are similarly skilled.

This coffee stand is no drive-through. It is no indoor sit-down. This is a coffee stand where neighbors actually choose to stand around outdoors under a canvas awning, rain or shine, wind or snow, for hours on end, seven days a week.

If you snag one of the four brightly painted Adirondack chairs beneath the awning and stay long enough, you’ll see an almost complete cross section of Vashonites, although they come in distinctly segmented waves.

For example, between opening at 7 and 8 a.m. on weekdays (opening is 8 a.m. on weekends), the crowd will be drivers of pickups, craftsmen on their way to jobs around the Island and, in season, teachers on their way to Vashon schools. Between 8 and 9, it’s “Insult Hour,” during which several semi-employed or retired local clowns sling barbs at each other for the general amusement of the other patrons (and themselves). Between 9 and 10 a.m., it’s “Mommy Hour,” when the coffee stand is overrun by small children in prams and mothers desperate for adult conversation.

And so it goes, wave after wave, until 3 p.m. when the shutters come down and the window is locked for the day.

As anchors go, though, none is more firmly set in the historical and emotional strata of Burton than the Harbor Mercantile — not that anyone calls it that. No, it’s simply, “Sandy’s Store.”

Established in 1892, it’s the last of what once were 13 general stores on the Island. But one can’t help but think it barely breathed until Sandy Mattara came along in 1977 to slap it into life. Big-hearted and sharp-tongued, Sandy does not simply run the store, she presides.

Open Tuesday through Sunday 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., the mercantile is the kind of place where you can find anything you need, short of clothing, fresh meat or fish: hardware for your boat; building supplies for whatever may have broken at home but didn’t warrant a trip up town; canned, packaged and frozen groceries; fresh produce of the sort you always need when more people invite themselves to dinner than you planned and you have to stretch the menu; a sophisticated selection of beer and wine; gourmet ice cream; newspapers and magazines; free biscuits and/or smoked sausage for any dog who happens to wander in, with or without owner; free coffee for the regulars; and free advice from Sandy on almost any subject — political, financial, or personal.

If Sandy’s store doesn’t carry it, you probably don’t need it.

What’s Burton’s secret?

“Simple,” Sandy says. “Burton is what Hometown USA use to be: a place where everybody knows their neighbors and everybody gives a damn.”

Kathy Kush gives her own example.

“We have a regular customer who recently has begun to work off-Island and whose incredibly clever dog simply ignores her new Invisible Fence and bolts down to Burton. Everyone knows Lola. They bring her to the coffee stand and someone takes her home again. Everyone cares; everyone pitches in.”

Lawrence Durrell, the famed travel writer, once wrote, “Different places on the face of the earth have a different vital effluence, different vibration. … Call it what you like. But spirit of place is a great reality.”

It certainly is in Burton.