When her grandmother died several years ago, Erin Reynolds-Turner faced the choice of what to do with the clothes her grandmother left behind.
“She had all these really gorgeous, mostly custom-made clothes that I couldn’t bear to [give away],” Reynolds-Turner said.
Rather than donate, she convinced her employers at the now-shuttered Argo store to let her sell them, successfully persuading them that selling vintage clothing counted as recycling. She eventually decided to sell them herself, and Fox House Vintage was born.
The name of the store is a tribute to her late best friend, with whom she shared the habit of calling each other “fox.”
Fox House Vintage and Push Push Press are two of a growing number of businesses shying away from larger retail centers in favor of revitalized local neighborhoods in Lexington, in this case the North Limestone corridor.
That break from the busy shopping centers and centralized retail, with the attendant issues of parking and traffic, is part of the draw of setting up shop in what might seem like an out-of-the-way spot. Or maybe it’s the chance to do something they love in their own way that sets these businesses apart.
Reynolds-Turner loves the idea of selling vintage clothes to people who truly appreciate them.
“Part of the act of exchanging money for goods [is that] you know that it’s someone who is thoughtful enough that they were willing to pay for it,” she said.
Her new business partner of just under a year, Lauralee Crain, had a nearly identical experience and sees the same sentiment in those who come into the shop.
“My grandfather had two wives and they’re both dead, and I inherited their clothes, too. ... I just didn’t want to give them away,” Crain said. “People come in all the time and want to sell their clothes to us. They just want someone else to love their clothes or their parents’ clothes.”
That appreciation and admiration led the pair to open what is now the third Fox House Vintage storefront. In its relatively new location on West Sixth just of North Limestone, it stands as a prime example of the revitalization of the North Limestone neighborhood. Giant block letters down the side of a stylish and impressively modernized building beckon onlookers down from Al’s Bar, Arcadium and North Lime Coffee & Donuts.
“I sit behind this desk for eight hours on Saturday and probably watch a hundred people turkey-neck and look over here and try to figure out what it is,” Reynolds-Turner said. Neither woman is shy about the real benefit of what others might see as an esoteric location, however.
“In every other location I’ve had, there’s been no sense of community,” said Reynolds Turner. “[Nearby] Fleet Street Hair Shoppe will say to people, ‘Oh, you’ve got to go up to Fox House.’ They’re incredibly loyal, and I hope we do them justice. Same thing with the coffee shop, and with Al’s, too. There’s just much more of a sense of community.”
Crain, who left a job teaching to partner with Reynolds-Turner in Fox House fulltime, recalled a recent incident where it appeared a thief had shattered a tip jar on the sidewalk while trying to steal it from North Lime. She grabbed a broom and ran to help clean up, while several other neighbors joined in the effort.
It’s that sense of community that attracted Chris Hamersly of Push Push Press to his location on North Limestone just north of Loudon. For Hamersly, there are other benefits as well.
“It’s pretty fun people-watching here,” Hamersly said, as a man walked past his open door, loudly swearing to himself. Hamersly opened his screen-printing shop two years ago but moved into his current location just three months ago. It doesn’t hurt that his new storefront is next door to some of his bigger customers.
“I do a lot of business with Bullhorn and Kentucky for Kentucky, and now I’m working with NoLi CDC,” said Hamersly. “A lot of people who work over here also live pretty close to the neighborhood, so they’re always around this part of town.”
Even though he doesn’t currently sell anything directly from his storefront, Hamersly is optimistic he might start to as soon as he can decide on a product. He favors selling screenprinting supplies. In fact, the process of screenprinting is what makes his layout so special to him.
“People don’t really know what screenprinting is. Most of the shops you go to have an office, but there’d be a wall — you wouldn’t see anything that goes on,” said Hamersly. “So it was important to me to show what printing actually is.”
These neighborhood businesses are building slowly, but Reynolds-Turner believes the day will come when the North Limestone neighborhood shops could be as busy as the mall.
“I think that being on the ground level of anything, the payoff may not be immediate,” she said, “but it’s going to be there. It’s definitely going to be there in this community. People are finally starting to realize that this isn’t a scary location. It’s new, it’s up and coming, and it’s exciting.”