It seems like an epidemic has hit Boston. Home furnishing
stores are popping up in Cambridge, on Charles Street, in the South
End. Stylish and intimate, these shops are tiny when measured by yardstick
but large when it comes to concept, offering a plethora of merchandise
and services. They are not, quite frankly, the impersonal mega showrooms
of your grandmother's day.
Gone are mass-produced, cookie-cutter furniture and the hard sell. What's
in and cool? Small spaces, one-on-one attention, and the sensation of
visiting the apartment of a close friend. Well-designed American-made
furniture, such as the popular Mike Moore line, is for sale, along with
affordable imports.
In the past year, four such stores have sprung up, offshoots of their
owners' original creations. Black Ink on Charles Street now has a new
home store on Broadway in Cambridge. Fresh Eggs on Clarendon Street
in the South End is the big sister of F.kia on Tremont. Koo
de Kir on Charles Street and Zoe Home on Tremont are the
newborns of the duo that ran the Artsmart stores.
All four stores represent the passions and visions of an eclectic group
of young entrepreneurs.
"To start a business like this, you have to have a
real degree of stupidity to pull it off," says Dror Ashuah, 35, former
co-owner of the Artsmart stores. "If you are too educated, have a degree
from a business school, it just doesn't work."
He should know. A decade ago, he opened a small gallery in the South
End called A Different Angle while studying photography at Massachusetts
College of Art. A recent immigrant from Israel, where he grew up on
a kibbutz, Ashuah ran the space on a shoestring with the help of Kristine
Irving, now owner of Koo de Kir.
They eventually opened Artsmart on Congress Street in fall 1991 with
the intention of selling a mixture of crafts and art for three months
during the holidays. It was such a success that they eventually added
two more stores.
Ashuah now concentrates on his two Zoe shops.
"My wife [Debora Mache, a painter and set designer
who grew up in Peru and then lived in Germany and China before coming
to the States] and I opened Zoe on Newbury Street in March of 1997,
a month after our daughter, Zoe, was born," says Ashuah, who proudly
shows a visitor photographs of his wife and daughter.
The Newbury store is glitzy, filled with loud colors and loud music,
an appealing stop for sidewalk tourists and the Euro-crowd. The new
Zoe Home in the South End, which opened April 17, is the polar opposite
- soft lighting, muted colors, sophisticated furniture, and beautifully
designed accessories and affordable art work.
The music here is jazz.
"We didn't just want this store to feature furniture and accessories
but wanted it to encompass a whole lifestyle," says Ashuah, who imports
pieces from Italy and also features such American designers as Mike
Moore, Bill Becker, and Rob Shane.
"Follow me." Downstairs, on the garden level of the two-story store,
is a water bar that will feature 200 different bottled waters from 50
countries and shelves filled with oils and bath salts. There will also
be linens and bath accessories on this level. Garden furniture will
be sold on the large brick patio after some cleanup work and landscaping.
Ashuah says his customers are first-time home buyers
in their late 20s and 30s and couples in their 50s who are selling their
suburban homes, buying lofts, and furnishing these new spaces with contemporary
pieces.
"I really think Boston is becoming a huge center of design," says Ashuah,
who received a master's in psychology from Harvard University last year.
"It's not only these four small stores... Portico opened up on Newbury
Street and there's [the Morson Collection] and Mohr & McPherson on Arlington
Street. I think the competition is exciting."
Koo de Kir on
the corner of Charles and Chestnut streets on Beacon Hill greets the
shopper with Mandarin orange and golden yellow walls and ceiling, antique
Moroccan chandeliers, and elegant, sometimes quirky but fundamentally
stylish, furniture and accessories.
"I wanted a space where a person could come in and feel comfortable,"
says owner Kristine Irving, 28,
former partner with Ashuah of the Artsmart stores. "I didn't want to
be on Newbury Street. Businesses come and go so quickly there, plus
there's a trendy edge to the street. It's not cozy. Beacon Hill is cozy
and goofy and you don't have to have a pierced bellybutton to own a
shop here."
The space was formerly one of the three Artsmart stores until Irving
took over the space 18 months ago. She slowly began to transform the
store into her own vision. Instead of just gifts, she wanted to branch
out into home design and furniture.
"It was time to go out on my own and do my own things and follow my
own aesthetics," says Irving, who was 19 and a student at Mass Art when
she first helped Ashuah run A Different Angle gallery in the South End.
"I named it Koo de Kir after the
French words coup de coeur, which mean 'take your breath away.' I spelled
it phonetically because I didn't want to be pretentious and used K because
my name is spelled with a K."
Irving says she goes to trade shows three and four times a year and
travels to Paris, London, and Italy for inspiration. "I want the average
person to be able to have beautiful things in their homes," says Irving,
who is doubling the space of her store this summer. "With the extra
space, I want to have a studio where I can design a furniture line of
my own. Over the years, I've built up relationships with clients and
I want to be able to customize furnishings for them."
She says service and personal attention is highly
important in today's market and one of the pluses of running a small
store.
"Furniture is like clothing," says Irving, who grew up in Reading. "A
house expresses a person's passions through color, textures, design,
style, and form."
Ned Hand, 30, opened F.Kia, the store, six years ago to showcase the
home products designed by her fiance, Marcello Albanese, and his partner,
Gary Knell, of F.Kia, the studio. She bought the store from them last
year and opened a second shop, Fresh Eggs, last fall on Clarendon Street
in the South End.
"Marcel and Gary are very busy with their wholesale
business, plus they weren't good salespeople, especially Marcel," says
Hand, who grew up in Ireland. "He'd practically give things away or
at half price. So I took over the retail end of the business."
She said she wanted Fresh Eggs to be an all-inclusive store offering
clients custom furniture, drapery and bedding, lighting and glassware,
plus gifts and even toys and clothing for children ("because there's
lots of kids around here"). She chose to remain in the South End because
she likes the feeling of a small and close-knit neighborhood. Also,
she was drawn to the space, a former fix-it shop, because of the stained-glass
windows and tin ceilings and walls.
"It's a real neighborhood here," says Hand, who named her store Fresh
Eggs because she wanted to emphasize the concept of home as nest. "People
are always stopping in to chat. Which is what we like. We didn't want
the space to be commercial. We wanted it to look homey and friendly."
Her partner, Julie Sutherland, 35, was brought on board as bookkeeper
and salesperson. Hand says she didn't want to run a second store alone
and that the close friends are a perfect match - she's the creative
force while Julie watches the numbers.
"I think what small stores can provide is personal attention," says
Hand. "People get to know us and trust our tastes. We visit their apartments
and homes and listen to their needs. They really want to be involved
in the decorating process. Plus, they can save money because they don't
have to hire a decorator. We're here to fulfill those duties. There's
a better atmosphere here than in a decorator's office. It's very low
key."
Koo de Kir and Fresh Eggs are comfy,
cozy. By contrast, Black Ink@Home is stark, industrial, and a shimmering
beacon on an otherwise storeless stretch of Broadway in Cambridge.
Tim Corcoran, 45, and his wife, Susan, opened Black
Ink, a small housewares store, on Charles Street four years ago. They
opened the larger Broadway store last fall. The new location made sense
because they live nearby and wanted a separate identity from the furniture
chains on Massachusetts Avenue.
"We thought there'd be less pressure to conform over here," says Corcoran,
who had no previous experience in retail and got a degree in philosophy
at Harvard several years ago. "We wanted to be the only ones in town
to carry certain items. The store, surprisingly, has been a success
from the beginning even though it's off the beaten track."
Perhaps it's because so many of the items bring a
smile to the face of the most dour of shoppers. There's a table lamp
in the shape of a spider - its body holding the light; small black wooden
stools with seats made from recycled Persian lamb coats; and attractive
and comfortable chairs made from recycled seat belts.
"Our stuff is well made, stylish but affordable," says Corcoran, who
points out that the store is too small to feature large pieces of furniture.
"A lot of stylish furniture has one too many embellishments. Our stuff
doesn't. It's well made, affordable, and has little pretense.
"There's nothing precious here and everything in the
store has a use. Industrial styling lends itself to that."
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