I remember coming here as a kid once in awhile with my parents, and we came to Gearhart and we stayed in the big Gearhart Hotel at the time. My parents wouldn’t even let us go into Seaside at the time, because it was not a place you would let young girls go into. So, Gearhart was nice and quiet and it had a nice little pool and things, so I had memories of it already. I liked it, but I wasn’t thinking about coming here at all. I’m an interior designer and do design everywhere. I’ve worked all over the United States, East Coast, all over. I could actually be in any location. So I could come here, but L.A. is where my market and most of my clients were. It was a shock to be kind of like, dropped here. The first year, (my husband) is a pharmacist, he wasn’t even around because they couldn’t find him a solid place. They were floating him everywhere. He was down in Southern Oregon. He was in Longview. He’s licensed in three states. So here, I’m by myself. I said, if I don’t do something I’m just going to go crazy, and I can only eat, and drink so much wine.
I’ve been here for almost four years. We bought the home in May and we moved here in the beginning of October, and a year later I started working on this. I had to gut and remodel the whole space.
Well, I wanted to have... I’ve had other retail stores in the past. And I wanted to have something that kind of fit into the community, because in Gearhart you have to have some kind of a need. They will not let a business come in here unless it is something that will service the community, because they don’t want this to be a tourist trap. They made that real clear.
So there used to be a shop next door and when I was remodeling... I’ve done this before, and it works great, I never put up butcher paper. You want the community to see what you’re doing. You want that interest, so they come in and then you get to meet people. So that’s what I did, and people would just come in daily, because I did a lot of the work myself.
Everybody told me this story. There was this shop next door. They were these great people, and they carried cards, and they carried puzzles and they carried whatever. So from my idea of doing an interior shop, where I just did, you know, a little bit of furniture, lamps, and anything you can do, I wanted to do pillows, rugs. So I just started building up what people liked, and what people wanted for their homes here.
I actually started out in marketing. My background is marketing. And I did other things. I had some retail stores. My ex-husband and I had a chain of retail stores in Oregon and Washington, so that was kind of my background. And then I got interested in doing design work because I worked with my father and he needed someone to do his design and layouts and things like that, so I got interested in it, and it kind of just started. So I went into doing design work.
I had a lot of clients and because I did marketing I started doing medical marketing, so I moved at the time from Portland down to Southern Oregon. There were no jobs there. If you were an interior designer, you worked in a furniture store. People just didn’t use (interior designers). It was about 20-something years ago and Medford and that area was very small. Basically, I decided I’d do marketing because I had to work. So I specialized in medical marketing.
I worked for medical doctors and hospitals. Providence was one of my clients. I would do outreach. My specialty was in mammography and women’s health awareness. In Southern Oregon there was nothing going on there and there was a lot of poverty and women in need that needed mammograms. So I started doing fundraising and marketing in that because I could market that to the public. In doing that, I was sought out by several groups. Salem Radiology. Eugene Radiology. Albany General Hospital. And they asked me to do marketing for them, because it kind of just started catching on because nobody did medical marketing. So I started doing that. And then when several of the places found out I was an interior designer they asked me to do things like... I did Albany Women’s Center 20-something years ago from the ground up. But before I did that I did a big fundraising to raise the money to break ground for them to put that in. So I did that, and I did ‘Good Sam’ a long, long time ago. When I was working with my father we did the maternity wing there. And then I did Portland Eye Center. So it just sort of caught on.
I still do interior design. I don’t do the marketing. But they kind of went hand-in-hand. I worked with Providence, and then we did their cancer center, so it just for me was more (word-of-mouth), then I just started doing homes. So I’ve done just about every aspect of interior design. I can do stylings. I’ve done selections. I’ve done big subdivisions and planning and things like that. And then I’ve done big, huge homes for people down in L.A., or homes for around here and stuff like that. And then I got interested in (historic preservation). My mother’s family has a homestead in Connecticut that is over 300 years old. It’s like the oldest homestead in the United States still owned by one family. So I was on the board, and I decided we needed to do some work, and in order to do that in that old home you have to find out what makes it, what the bones are. So I went back and did training in historic homes. So I started doing that and added that as a specialty in what I do.
I think it’s a good balance. It’s helped to have Dave [Leslie] here. Dave started a few months ago. His background is in banking. So he’s really taken off to organize the store part of it, which really helps me because then I’m freed up to do design things, and then I can travel too because he’s here. And I have clients in L.A., or Scottsdale, or Seattle, or Portland, or wherever, and I’m kept very busy. But I never advertise, so it’s word-of-mouth.
There’s only so much room in this little shop, but I try to have a lot of local artists and things. The woman that makes these towels lives right down the street, so they can be customized. Cindy [Bricca] makes amazing jewelry. She studied in Hawaii and is always taking classes and she does fantastic things. Shyla [Moon] does little hand-stamped bracelets or earrings. That, and pillows, I have great upholstery here. Kim Campbell, and she can do anything. And I look for people, and they bring things in. I have this man, he hand-cuts all those fish and then he puts like an enamel on them.
Those are amazing.
Artisan jewelry, and a lot of little antique things, and then just new things that people would want to put in their homes. But as I evolve here, people come in and say — ‘Do you have this?’ I’ll look for it to add it to the shop. And then sometimes I change it. I started adding puzzles. This kind I use, Ravensburger, are like the best kind ever.
That’s something we added just this year. We’ve been open a little over two years. It’s something I’ve just added this year and it’s just taken off. I have just enough, in an age range for kids that might want to take something down to the beach or keep them busy inside if it’s rainy. You know, things like adult coloring books have gone really great. I carry some books. I try to carry a lot of local authors.
Everyone sort of deals with the seasonal aspect of doing business in these coastal towns. What’s that like for you? You’ve been here a couple years. You’ve seen the summer as opposed to the winter. Are there any changes you make and how do you make it work through the winter?
Definitely the summers are busier. But I have a lease, so I have to be making it year-round. I depend a lot on the local people to support it, which they do. The coffee keeps it going. That was a part of adding the coffee in. Pop’s [Sweet Shop] across the street closed over a year ago, and I knew she was closing, because my landlord told me, so I added in a bar to put coffee in, because John [Allen, of Pacific Way Bakery and Cafe] is open and he has an amazing bakery over there, but we have great coffee. We have Sleepy Monk out of Cannon Beach. It’s organic roast coffee. That was something I thought the community needed, because he’s closed in the winter most of the time. And he closes at 1:00, so if you want coffee any other time you can’t get it. And I’ve got WIFI and he doesn’t have it. So even if the store’s not busy, the coffee is.
If somebody was going to open a shop in Gearhart or Seaside, is there any advice you could give them in terms of things you’ve learned? I mean, you’ve done a lot of things like this before so you have a lot of experience to draw from.
You know you have to... I’ve even owned an Irish Pub!
Oh man, that’s the hardest job I ever had.
You have to kind of listen to what the locals are telling you. You can’t depend on it being just tourists. There’s something unique about if people are going to open a business here in Gearhart. Because basically, the Gearhart community doesn’t want a bunch of tourists to come in. I mean you can’t stop people because the more they find out about Gearhart the more they come. But you have to kind of cater to what the locals want. Because there’s only so many shops. You should make sure you’re not doing what somebody else is doing. There’s about three other little shops here and I try not to carry what they’re carrying, and I go the opposite way. So if they’re carrying a certain type of pillow, I don’t want to do it. Even the kind of candles I got. I got plain pillar candles because everybody else carries candles, and they’re scented. So you just kind of have to do the opposite. But it’s really kind of a hit-and-miss. You know, you have to have a variety of things. You just have to. I now carry gourmet peanuts and candies and things like that because you can’t get them across the street anymore, and they make a nice gift. You just have to really find your place. I can see... I’d love to see somebody open a little clothing shop here. With seasonal things, where you can get galoshes, or rain gear, or sun gear. I don’t know how many people come over here and say — ‘Do you have thongs? Do you have sunglasses? Do you have this?’ And I can’t carry everything.