Wing & Clover: An Artist’s Palette
By Kathryn Matthews
Perhaps, it’s the name “Wing & Clover” that catches your eye as you stroll down East Market Street in Rhinebeck. Or, the chalkboard, stationed outside the storefront, listing “Weekly Workshops” that piques your interest. Or, maybe you’ve just wandered in by accident.
No matter. This tranquil, white space, which triples as a workshop studio, gallery and retail store, immediately engages your imagination. The minimalist, light-filled interior features a curated selection of work by local artists and artisans. And a well-edited collection of art and crafts-themed books, supplies and gifts line the shelves. Workshops run the creative DIY gamut, from oil painting and knitting, to bookmaking and Photoshop. Taught by local Hudson Valley artists,
most classes are one-day, limited to 10-12 people, and last two or three hours.
“We’re committed to the process of being creative” says owner Marla Walker (below left, with employees Alex Batkin and Yvette Rogers), who opened Wing & Clover last December.
The seed for this kind of storefront was planted in 2007 when Walker, her husband, Brian Walker, an architect, and their two young sons moved from Brooklyn to Barrytown. Away from the City, she said, “I gained not just greater physical space, but also more psychological freedom, allowing me to think and to reflect.”
This opportunity for reflection sparked Walker’s desire to be creative—and to try new things. One of her recent creative endeavors was teaching herself how to quilt.
“I figured that there might be other people like me, who want to expand their creative horizons,” she said. At the same time, she was meeting many talented, creative people in the area.
The impetus for opening the store—and its guiding tenet—is that an “examined life” —one that taps into your creative potential—is an enriched life.
Its unusual name, referring to both tool (wing) and raw material (clover) that bees need to make honey, is Walker’s metaphor for the creative process. In this case, the store supplies the books, materials and classes that help create your “honey”.
For Walker, the store has been a way to connect people who are eager to learn, with a community of local artists and artisans, who are happy to teach. She has also just begun using the workshop studio to showcase the work of the instructors. Eventually, what students make will also be displayed. “It’s a great way to discover a local artist—including yourself!” she said.
The overarching theme at Wing & Clover is documentation—and the many forms of storytelling. One of the most consistently popular workshops is papercutting, taught by Jenny Lee Fowler, a traditional silhouette artist, specializing in custom profile portraits. Her work, which currently appears on the cover of Neiman Marcus’ Fall 2010 catalog, is also on display at the shop. Classes on fiction-writing, pattern-making and block printing also tend to fill up quickly.
Much of what Walker sells complement the workshops being offered. Over time, she intends to create whole sections in the store devoted to fabric, textiles, quilting, photography and film-making, as well as art supplies for painting or collage classes.
Walker is used to thinking out-of-the-box. While getting her Masters in Education at Harvard, she specialized in media and technology. Inspired by her graduate work—helping inner city, pre-teen girls make documentary videos about their lives—Walker founded a “Monday for Girls” after-school program that encouraged girls’ use of technology at The Computer Museum.
From Boston, she headed to New York, where she worked as a producer at Children’s Television Workshop, then at Noggin.
Her foray into retail was another—albeit accidental—creative outlet for Walker. In 1999, she and a friend opened “Bird”, a clothing store in Park Slope, after searching their neighborhood in vain for stores that sold cheap, stylish clothes. Filling an obvious retail void, Bird was instant hit. (The duo sold the business to its current owner in 2004.)
But with Wing & Clover, Walker wants to go beyond just a commercial retail experience: “I want to inspire others to participate in the creative process because, whatever the medium, we all have stories to tell.”
Wing & Clover
22 East Market Street
Rhinebeck; 845.876.1035
Summer Hours: Monday-Saturday 11am-6pm; Sunday 11am-4pm
Kathryn Matthews, Rural Intelligence’s Dutchess County correspondent, is a lifestyles writer based in Red Hook and New York City who frequently writes about travel, health, food and leisure for the New York Times, Town & Country and O Magazine.
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/27/10 at 11:00 AM • Permalink
The Berkshires’ First Lady of Fashion: Mikki Brown
If you see a woman wearing a dress this summer that is so exceptionally pretty, quirky or arresting that you have to stop and ask her, “Where’d you get that?” the answer will more than likely be “The Browns.” Located on Water Street in Williamstown, which is the heart of the Williams College campus, The Browns offers a dog-whistle fashion sensibility filtered for the new ruralists: clothes and accessories that are right for everything from openings at Jacob’s Pillow and The Clark to a wedding in a meadow or an outdoor concert in the courtyard of MASS MoCA. 
When Mikki Brown and her husband, Tom, opened their loft-like shop five years ago, they were refugees from suburban Fairfield County, CT, who’d decided to take a sabbatical from their fashion careers and try living at their weekend house in Hancock, MA. Tom had worked at Mitchell’s in Westport, where hedge-fund guys bought their four-figure suits, and Mikki had a resume that included big jobs at Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, Issey Miyake and Capezio. They discovered that as much as they loved the simplicity of rural life they were starved for style. They decided to see if they could create a boutique that would synthesize their past and present lives. “My goal was to have unusual things that you could not find in department stores or specialty shops,” says the effervescent Mikki. “Of course, I had no idea what people here actually wore.”
Mikki decided she would stock The Browns with clothes for women (and men) like herself who think that apparel can be art and who are willing to invest in quality clothes with style that supersedes fashion trends (and has very little to do with designer labels.) “That is my biggest challenge,” she explains. “It’s amazing how much people want to buy clothes with labels they recognize from magazines.” Although she carries some clothes by Max Mara, Martin Margiela’s MM6 line, and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, most of the labels on the rack are obscure such as Nuno from Japan and SkifO from St. Louis. “My average dress costs about $265, and most of my T-shirts are $50 - $80,” she says. “Sometimes, we carry luxury items like a $3,500 Max Mara winter coat, but I know my customers well and who might actually buy that coat.”
The Browns is not about what’s in fashion this season. “My goal is to help people find their personal style and mix pieces from many collections,” says Mikki, who dresses that way herself. On a recent weekday, she was wearing an exuberant and youthful outfit: a hand painted silk Heyne Bogut jumper (“made in Philadelphia!”) over layered T-shirts by Beautiful People and Martin Margiela, with French ballet flats by Pataugas and a chunky vintage necklace. “I don’t think age is a factor if you love clothes,” she says.
While some college students shop at The Browns, it is more typically their parents who are the store’s customers. Mikki and Tom tried to sell cutting-edge men’s clothing but the market was too small, so they stick to more traditional lines for guys such as Bill’s Khakis (“made in America!”), French Connection T-shirts, and custom-made Jack Victor suits (“they’re made in Canada, cost about $850 which is ridiculously low for a custom fit, and you get it in four weeks.”) Their customers are a mix of summer tourists, actors from Williamstown Theatre Festival, and year-round regulars from three states. “We have loyal clients from Dorset and Bennington, Vermont, and from Albany and Saratoga, New York, and from Sheffield and Great Barrington, Massachusetts,” she says.
The store even has fans from New York City such as Leslie Milton, the director of major gifts for the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side, who has a weekend house in Stockbridge. “I walked into the Browns about two weeks after they opened and from the minute I met Mikki, I knew I could trust her to dress me,” says Milton. “It’s a rare day that I’m not wearing at least one item of clothing from the store, and it’s a very frequent occurrence that one hundred percent of my outfit, including bag and shoes, was hand-picked for me by Mikki. She has the most incredible sense of what will look good on you and she is never wrong. And if all that weren’t enough, everyone who knows her will tell you that she is the most positive, generous, beautiful woman they know. I just adore her.”
The Browns
16 Water Street, Williamstown, MA; 413.458.1618
Summer Hours:
Monday - Saturday 10 a.m.- 6 p.m.
Sunday 12 - 5 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/23/10 at 10:23 AM • Permalink
Hudson’s White Rice Expands to Great Barrington
Was the opening in mid-May of a Great Barrington branch of White Rice—the six-year-old Hudson shop selling apparel and antiques from Bali—part of a “crossover” trend as described by the astute social observer and blogger Sam Pratt? He draws a comparison between White Rice and other locally-owned “chains” like Hammertown Barn (Great Barrington, Pine Plains, Rhinebeck) and Baba Louie’s (Great Barrington, Hudson and soon Pittsfield.) With its deep blue walls, boho vibe, and eclectic merchandise, White Rice feels like its karma was to be in Great Barrington.
Owners Rudy Huston (right) and Mary Vaughn Williams started their wholesale clothing company two decades ago after falling in love with Bali and its batik prints and wood furniture. For many years, they lived in New York City and shortly after 9/11 they decided they wanted to live a rural life. “But I wanted a little bit of the city in the country which is why we moved to Hudson,” says Huston. “We could open a shop and live upstairs and be with our children all the time.” Although many of their regular customers in Hudson come from Connecticut and Massachusetts, they felt that they weren’t really tapping into the Berkshire/Litchfield market. “There are people who see Great Barrington and Hudson as very connected and others who seem them as very different worlds. Some people are intimidated by the grit of Hudson.”
Huston sees synergy between the two towns, and he notes that one of the first customers at the new shop was a woman who lives in Hawthorne Valley which is right in between the two stores. White Rice carries the kind of flowy, fun and feminine accessories and clothes that don’t cost a fortune—a cotton dress for $60, a rayon dress for $68, a sweater for $74—so customers keep coming back to buy more. Huston isn’t saying whether he’s thinking about a third store yet, but he’s very pleased with how number 2 has turned out. “I’m a ‘chain store’ now,” he says happily.
White Rice
Main Street, Great Barrington; 413. 644.9200
Sunday - Thursday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Friday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Saturday 10 a.m. - 7 p.m.
531 Warren Street, Hudson; 518.697.3500
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 06/03/10 at 06:19 AM • Permalink
dbO Home’s Pop-up Shop Opens in Great Barrington
Since giving up her high-powered marketing job at Elektra Records in New York City in 2006, Dana Brandwein (left with her husband, Daniel Oates) has been making pottery in her barn in Sharon, CT. Her porcelain and stoneware is found on the tables at the highly regarded restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns and the Harney Tea Salon in Millerton. In the past four years, she has sold her hand glazed one-of-a-kind hand-thrown, hand-built or hand-caste bowls, plates, platters and vases to some of the best home furnishings stores in the country, including ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan and Urban Mercantile in San Francisco. You could find a few of her pieces locally at Privet House in Warren and Liliandloo in Hudson; but until last week when she opened a pop-up shop at Germain in Great Barrington you could not see the entire collection anywhere.
“I loved Germain the minute I read about it last fall in Rural Intelligence,” says Brandwein, who has the sweet-and-smart aura of a one-time hippie-chick, rock-‘n’-roll executive “I thought, I could not only live in this store. I could sell my pottery in this store, too.” This spring, after Julia Baier moved out of her part of Germain and before a new tenant was ready to move in, Germain owner Elena Letteron offered Brandwein the opportunity to have her own shop-within-a-shop through June 6. “It’s the perfect place and opportunity for me.”
Her boutique is a chance for shoppers to discover locally made tableware that has a rustic elegance such as platters that look like burled wood or white birch bark. One of Brandwein’s signatures is pressing leaves, twigs or honeycomb (from Meili Farm near her studio) into the clay to create a pattern or decoration. “It makes each piece one of a kind,” she explains. Though the pieces, especially the porcelain, feel very delicate, Brandwein says they are tough enough to be used every day. “You don’t need to have a full set of anything. It mixes very well with pieces from Ikea.”
It also looks good on the stunning $6,000 Live Edge English elm table with triple bent legs that was made by her husband, Daniel Oates, a sculptor and former puppet maker. “I use elm that has been felled responsibly,” he says. “A lot of it gets cut down because of Dutch elm disease.” Besides collaborating with Oates on a group of lamps, Brandwein is expanding beyond ceramics. She recently took a trip to Peru where she was introduced to artisans who work in fair-trade workshops and make textiles and pillows out of super-soft alpaca and cotton. Brandwein loves her new career where she’s star of the show. She says she got out of the music business just in the nick of time. “I don’t understand why people want to buy music on their phones!” she says, laughing. “I wouldn’t fit in anymore.” But she certainly fits in beautifully at Germain.
dbO Home Pop Up Store at Germain
Through June 6
635 Main Street, Great Barrington; 413.644.8688
Friday & Saturday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.; Sunday noon. - 4 p.m.
Or by appointment
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 05/17/10 at 08:05 PM • Permalink
High End On-Line, the Brave New World of Luxury Retailing
“A couple of years ago, big-time luxury retailing changed drastically. The stores became impossible for a small vendor like me to deal with,” says Kerry MacBride (left), a Hudson-based jewelry designer whose creations had done well for years at such lofty outlets as Berdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Neiman Marcus. “They would demand that I agree to take back anything that hadn’t sold by the end of a season, as if my stuff were on consignment. Even if a customer came back two years later, to take advantage of the retailer’s ‘generous’ return policy, they’d send the piece back to me and demand that I return what they’d paid me.”
MacBride dates this alarming sea-change to 2008, when “Saks marked down everything by 80% at Thanksgiving,” a move that sent shock waves throughout the high-end retail industry. Retailers’ responded by making draconion demands on their vendors—and the stores’ taste suddenly got very safe. “One buyer told me, ‘Our customers don’t want things they have never seen before; they want what their friends have.’” In other words, unless a jewelry designer were a David Yurman, whose chunky cable-inspired baubles are a symbol of tribal affiliation for well-to-do woman nationwide, forget it.
Today, battered but unbroken by the collapse of a (perhaps antiquated) business model that had once sustained him, MacBride has positioned himself to take advantage of another that is just emerging—luxury shopping on-line. “Word on the street is that the Hudson antiques dealers who are doing best are those who have a big internet presence,” he says. For his part, MacBride has created a user-friendly website that offers his creations directly to the consumer, at much-reduced prices. “The message sent by Saks was not lost on consumers,” he contends. “It made everyone reassess what things cost. Now I can offer jewelry at a much better price. A necklace that would have sold for $1000 in a store? If I sell it for $500 over the internet, my profit margin is unchanged.”
MacBride makes jewelry that is highly refined, yet manages to retain a handmade quality. The faint lines in a leaf, for example, may appear to be the leaf’s veins, but they are actually MacBride’s fingerprints, impressions left in the soft wax from which he fashions his prototypes. This is a surprising level of nuance for a $400, 22-karat gold-over-bronze collar (above) or for a pair of gold and mother-of-pearl earrings that cost less than $50. His heavy silver and braided leather bracelets for men (which some woman also enjoy wearing), lack no finesse for all their muscularity, and sell on-line for $125 - $700, exactly half of what they once fetched in stores.
Surviving one major change has opened MacBride to the possibility of others. A jeweler since his days as an art student in Michigan, he recently became interested in designing objects on a larger scale. “In New York, I lived and worked in a 700 square foot loft,” he says. “When I moved to a house in Hudson, I needed more furniture. I was looking for lamps and wondered, if I were designing lamps, how would I want them to look?” Inspired by the bases for Brancusi’s sculptures, by Frank Lloyd Wright’s geometic motifs and those of Charles Rennie MacIntosh, MacBride could envision what his ideal lamp would look like. Only problem: he had no idea how to translate that vision into a lamp, until he recalled something he’d done in art school. He filled a half-gallon milk carton with wet plaster of paris, let it dry, then tore off the carton. and began to sculpt. “I didn’t know how else to do this,” he says. “I spent three months carving blocks of plaster.” He then sent those models to an artisan in Mexico who replicates them in matte travertine, low-luster black onyx, and matte white quartz, “so they don’t look too new and shiny.” The lamps are available in Hudson and in New York through Foley-Cox or via MacBride’s website.
“The lamps are completely timeless; they could have been done this week or in the 30s or 40s,” he says. Other tastemakers seem to agree. “My very first sale through Foley & Cox in New York was to the President of Diane von Furstenburg.” Photographs of silver bracelet and lamp by Michael Fredericks.
Kerry MacBride.com
Foley & Cox Home
317 Warren Street
Hudson; 518.828.3210
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 04/20/10 at 05:48 PM • Permalink
Shopping: Sideshow Moves to Hudson
When Club Helsinki closed last year, “It broke my heart,” says Meri Avratin (left), who had been a bartender there for over seven years. “I still miss it. For me, it was the cultural epicenter of the Berkshires, and I loved being part of it.” With the center ring suddenly dark, Avratin cast about for something new to do, and, a year ago, she opened Sideshow Clothing Co., purveyors of vintage and used clothing for men and women, in Sheffield, MA. Recently, she relocated her store from the tiny space it had occupied on Route 7, just south of Great Barrington, to a much larger storefront across from the park in the 700 block of Warren Street in Hudson.
“A sideshow is hyperbolic, exaggerated,” Avratin explains. “It’s a place where people who are different, people on the fringe, can find work and community. I have always been intrigued by that.”
News of the move spread fast on Facebook, where it created lots of buzz. Offerings of best wishes came from such diverse quarters as the writer Roselle Chartock, wife of WAMC chair Alan Chartock, Deborah McDowell, co-owner of Club Helsinki, and Crispina Ffrench, Pittsfield’s renowned knitwear recycler.
Avratin’s motives for moving were varied, as well. “I wanted more space and to be where there would be more foot traffic,” she says. Unforeseen benefits include, “I like the diversity over here. Also, people in Hudson are more much adventurous about their clothes than in the Berkshires. They like to be noticed.”
“Mod, vintage, and 100% recycled” is how Avratin characterizes the Sideshow look. “I’m not big on fashion philosophy. I don’t have a lot of very fancy things. My aesthetic is more funky. I like vintage style, but it doesn’t have to be really old, it’s enough to look retro.” Affordable and functional are other comfort zones. “A guy can come in here and find Carhartts and cowboy boots,” she says. “I get a lot of feedback that the prices are very reasonable.”
Warren Street habitue Kitty Mackey (shown browsing, above) concurs. “For someone like me, who might be looking for something to jazz up our mainstream clothes—J. Crew, Banana Republic—we can find something fun here— or maybe even a treasure—for $15.”
Born in the Berkshires and raised in Great Barrington, Avratin is a second-generation scavenger. “My mother used to be an antiques dealer. She has an incredible eye. When we were kids, she used to bring us over to Hudson because she thought the buildings were so beautiful.”
Asked where she finds her merchandise, Avratin replies with a smile, “People always ask me that. But I’ll never tell.”
Sideshow Clothing Co.
707 Warren Street
Hudson, NY; 518.828.2810
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 04/09/10 at 09:40 AM • Permalink
You Are Here: A Souvenir Shop of Our Own
When Robin’s Candy Store opened two summers ago, many doubted that Robin Helfand’s business would see a second summer. But they did not quite understand (as she clearly did) how Great Barrington has become not only the retail-and-restaurant nexus for a large cross-section of residents from Berkshire, Columbia, Dutchess and Litchfield counties, but also a bona fide tourist destination. “All year long, people were coming into the candy shop and asking if we sold souvenirs,” says Helfand, who decided to give the people what they were asking for—and more!—by opening a second shop around the corner from her candy store.
On April 1, she opened You Are Here on Railroad Street in Great Barrington, which features merchandise from dozens of local purveyors. “Almost everything is locally produced, sourced or inspired,” she says. While 01230 baseball caps and BRK sweatshirts take center stage, the merchandise is an eclectic assortment that represents our region—there are vintage-style postcards that depict not only Stockbridge, MA, but also Salisbury, CT, and Millerton, NY. She has commissioned local artists and photographers to produce greeting cards and postcards. “We’ll sell you stamps, and mail the card for you, too,” she says. “It’s frustrating if you’re shopping on Sunday and the post office is closed.” She is also selling spice packs ($2.98) from Your Spice of Life of Hillsdale, NY, which are designed flat so they can be mailed in a greeting card as a locavore souvenir. If you are thirsty, she has a cooler filled with bottles of iced tea from Harney & Sons in Millerton. “I have sixty local vendors, and I am always looking for new resources.”
Helfand has a flair for showmanship and wants the store to be a tourist destination itself. She has local favorites James Taylor and Arlo Guthrie playing on the sound system. She has an incubator filled with quail eggs in a display cabinet. “Quails take exactly 26 days to hatch so I can time it so they arrive on Saturday mornings, which kids love,” she says. She sells handmade “bubble wand” kits ($24.99) from Asia Luna of Philmont, NY, and likes to go out on the sidewalk to demonstrate (above) how to make soap bubbles bigger than a beach ball. She has already taken 100 specials orders for the brand new Love the Berkshires quiz game by 73-year-old Phil Smith of Lee. She’s especially proud to be carrying the full-line of extracts—such as Cherry Heat, Witch Hazel, Bay Rum, vanilla—from Charles H. Baldwin & Sons of West Stockbridge, MA, which has been in business since 1888.
While You Are Here stocks BRK and GBR European-style oval magnets and bumper stickers for your car, you can also design your own. “I invested in the technology so we can print out anything you want as an oval bumper sticker in just a few seconds,” she explains. “It’s $4.99 for one to three characters, $5.99 for four to six characters, $6.99 for 7 - 20 characters.” We made a hundred the other day with the initials of a bride and groom as wedding souvenirs.” The magnetic board shaped like the USA (above) that she had custom made for the shop by Wally Rose of Pittsfield has been so popular that she is now accepting special orders on it. “The store is really all about giving customers what they want and supporting local artisans.”
She allows that some neighbors on Railroad Street are grumbling about her cheeky neon sign with the yellow arrow pointing to the front door. “Look at the old Hotpoint neon sign across the street,” she says. “I bet there were people who complained about it a long time ago. But now it’s iconic. I hope that’s how my sign will be seen one day. I think it brings life to the street.” Her shop most certainly does that.
You Are Here
24 Railroad Street, Great Barrington; 413.528.4484
Monday - Thrursday 11 a.m. - 7:30 p.m
Friday & Saturday ‘til 9:45 p.m. (later in summer); Sunday ‘till 7:45 p.m.
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 04/06/10 at 06:13 PM • Permalink
Last Call at Jack’s Grill in Housatonic: A Tag Sale on March 20
The first important tag sale of the season is also your last chance to purchase a memento (such as a quirky birdhouse or cookie jar) from Jack’s Grill, which came to life each summer in the village of Housatonic for the past seventeen years. Named for the paterfamilias of the Fitzpatrick clan, which started Country Curtains and rescued the Red Lion Inn 40 years ago, Jack’s Grill was a reflection of the owner’s family history and eclectic tastes. “My mother and I put all these collections together pre eBay,” says Nancy Fitzpatrick, who runs the Red Lion Inn (with its famous teapot collection) and Porches Inn (with its Paint-by-Number painting collection.) “We put most of it together in a couple of months. We did lots of shopping in Hudson when there were lots of antiques shops there rather than interior design shops. We went to auctions and local antique shops, too.”
Fitzpatrick is hopeful that many of Saturday’s shoppers will make their purchases for sentimental reasons. “I’m trying not to be too nostalgic but it’s hard to let that Howdy Doody puppet go!” she says. “I hope it finds the right home. And the oil can collection. I’ve been trying to find a spot for that at The Red Lion, but can’t think where it would work.The other difficult thing is disassembling a monument to my father, but he’s a practical person and understands and appreciates that we made a good business decision.”
So while you may never again be able to order Jack’s salmon with black bean salsa or chocolate pudding with High Lawn cream on an August night, you can have a piece of Fitzpatrick bric-a-brac to cherish forever.
Jack’s and Red Lion Inn Collectibles Sale
March 20
9 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Main Street, Housatonic, MA
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 03/16/10 at 07:44 PM • Permalink
Farm Chic: A Shopping Party to Benefit Berkshire Grown
Dai Ban's sterling charms ($65) designed exclusively for Berkshire Grown
“Farm Chic” may sound like an oxymoron, but the organizers of Sunday’s jewelry party at Allium restaurant for Berkshire Grown are very serious—and stylish— fundraisers. “The title is tongue in cheek,” says Barbara Zheutlin, the executive director of Berkshire Grown, the not-for-profit that champions local agriculture and cooking, which recently lost significant state funding. “Our board thought we could have some fun by selling jewelry and accessories to raise the $3,500 we need to publish our annual Farm to Table Directory, which brings together farmers and chefs, making it possible for restaurants to serve as much local food as possible and helping to keep small farmers in business.”
Laurily Epstein, vice president of the Berkshire Grown board, got the idea for Farm Chic when she discovered a bag of costume jewelry that she no longer wore in the back of her closet, and she envisioned a charity swap meet. “I figured every woman has a bag like that, and we could have a sale to raise money,” says Epstein (modeling jewelry near right with Robin Ban and Hester Velmans), who notes that the donated items come in every imaginable style and range in price from $2 to $50. Her fellow committee members were so enthusiastic about the concept that they decided to add new jewelry and accessories to the mix, including work by local artisans such as Stephanie Iverson. Saskia Laraz, Stephanie Gravalese, Crispina ffrench, and Sonya Mackintosh of smARTWORKS (who will donate 20 percent of their sales on Sunday to BG.) Allium owner Nancy Thomas is not only donating her restaurant but also nibbles to nosh while shopping.
The organizers are especially excited about the line of sterling silver charms ($65 each) that Great Barrington sculptor Dai Ban (left) has designed exclusively for Berkshire Grown, which will be sold on an ongoing basis. “He’s designed five to start and he plans to create a new one for us each year so you can add to your charm bracelet,” says Epstein,. The charms include an apple, a pig, a wedge of cheese, and a pitch fork. “You could wear one or two on a cord around your neck,” says Epstein. Now, that’s what we call Farm Chic.
Farm Chic Jewelry & Accessories Sale
February 28; 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Allium
42 Railroad Street, Great Barrington.
Free admission
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Posted by Dan Shaw on 02/24/10 at 12:31 PM • Permalink
Everybody’s All American: Paul Rich & Sons
Tom and Pam Rich at Paul Rich & Sons in Pittsfield.
Tom Rich has been betting on North Street’s renaissance for 27 years. When he and his parents, Paul and Betty Rich, opened their furniture store, Paul Rich & Sons, in 1983, “Pittsfield was still a GE town,” recalls Rich. “The England Brothers department store was still open down the street.” The home furnishings industry was still dominated by full-service department stores and independent retailers that sold dining room tables and club chairs manufactured mostly in Michigan and North Carolina. (It wasn’t until 1989, for instance, that specialty retailers like Crate & Barrel started selling furniture.) “There are very few full-service, family-run stores like ours left,” says Rich.
Improbably, Paul Rich & Sons has prospered in Pittsfield even when the city hasn’t. “Just as GE was shutting down, the second home boom was happening and that saved us,” says Rich, who notes he has seven full-time designers on staff to help customers with space planning and choosing fabrics. “We have a lot of customers from beyond the Berkshires, especially in Columbia County. The second-home customers like doing business with us so much that they started asking if we would deliver to Manhattan, New Jersey and Long Island. Now, we send a truck down to the New York City area a couple of times a month.”
To keep customers coming back, Paul Rich & Sons has increased its offerings. “As everyone else was grading down, we were grading up,” says Rich. “We still have furniture for the solid middle-class customers,” he says, pointing to a $999 sofa by Lee Industries, “but we also became higher end.” As the store expanded from 10,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet (and finally added air conditioning a few years ago), Paul Rich & Sons started selling room-sized Oriental rugs as well as outdoor furniture by prestige companies like Brown Jordan and Barlow Tyrie. “For five months of the year, we devote nearly one-third of the store to outdoor furniture,” he says. “It’s become one of our biggest categories.” Ekornes recliners from Norway are also a top-seller, but Rich is especially proud of the high-end Shifman mattresses that have a large display on the store’s lower level. “Would you believe they’re handmade in Newark, New Jersey?” he says.
Although it’s a challenge, Paul Rich & Sons makes a concerted effort to find American made products such as the tiger maples dining room tables made by D.R. Dimes in Northwood, New Hampshire. “He still delivers the tables to us personally, and I write him a check on the spot,” says Rich. “We do business the old fashioned way.”
Tom and his wife, Pam, who both grew up in Pittsfield, are heartened by the North Street revival. “We’re so happy that we can recommend many places within walking distance for our customers to have lunch,” says Pam. Indeed, when the couple went to have lunch across the street at Spice when it opened nearly four years ago, they sat at a window table looking at their own store and realized the exterior was looking tired. “That’s when we decided to make an investment in all the new awnings,” says Tom.
Even as they add classic modern pieces by Bertoia and Saarinen for Knoll, they remain traditionalists who take pride in selling American-made furniture. As Pam was getting ready for the annual Presidents’ Day Weekend sale, she did an inventory and made a pleasant discovery. “We still have 18 lines that are Made in America which gave us our sale’s theme,” she says. “What could be more appropriate for President’s Day?”
MADE IN THE USA
Brown Street Whitefield, NH
Bucks County Telford, PA
Charleston Forge Boone, NC
D.R. Dimes Northwood, NH
Flat Rock Waldron, IN
Hancock & Moore Highpoint, NC
Harden McConnesville, NY
Hickory Chair Hickory, NC
Lee Industries Newton, NC
MacKenzie-Dow Huntington, WV
Pearson High Point, NC
Sherill Hickory, NC
Shifman Mattress Newark, NJ
Stanley Stanleytown, VA
Vermont Woodcraft Whiting, VT
Vermont Tubbs Whitefield, NH
Zimmerman Chair Lebanon, PA
Paul Rich & Sons
242 North Street, Pittsfield, MA; 800-723-7424
Monday - Saturday: 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Sunday: noon - 4 p.m.
Presidents’ Day Sale: February 11 - 15
