Our History
Welcome to Greystone Gardens. The sign on the door of our Pittsfield store reads, Come In and Leave the World Behind. Thirty-four years ago I opened my first store with not much more than a passionate desire to leave the world behind. Right out of school, teaching hadnt worked out for me. I seemed to get in more trouble with what I said as a teacher than I did as a student; nor had the various jobs I tried while living in Manhattan on Thompson Street been much happier experiences. The crowds, the dirty halls of the fourth floor walk-up, the noise, the subways. It didnt take long for this way of life to wear thin and wear me down.
There just had to be a better way. So although Queens wasnt exactly the country, I escaped the concrete world of Manhattan for the few vacant lots and the postage stamp gardens of the boroughs and with some help from my parents, bought an inexpensive building which housed a store and two apartments. All for $18,000! I opened the store and called it Victory Gardens and lived upstairs in one of the small apartments. It was to me, a victory to open a store with no business experience or starting capital, but with just the sweet desire to build an oasis in what seemed to be a world that at best was slightly annoying, verging on quite irritating and often pretty scary. I wanted to escape from the world I knew, to a world, where at the very least, I would be welcome. A place where my thoughts, style, aesthetics, feelings and dreams would be acceptable, if only perchance by me. What better way to build an oasis than by filling it with plants and flowers, real or fantasy that were depicted on wallpapers, cotton chintz, or with flowers made from silk or paper or ones embedded in brocade drapes, or feathery ferns on lacy curtains and 40s dresses abundant with large cabbage roses and lilacs. I lived in my apartment above the store with flowered fabrics on the walls and stapled to the ceilings. Vases filled with flowers, fringed lamps with flower appliques and flower beading. Wielding a sledge hammer, I broke through the squares of concrete in the back alleyway, enclosed it in lattice work and planted my first garden outdoors. Twas Heavenly.
Everyday, I discovered new patterns to fall in love with, new ways that the joy of flowers and color expressed themselves. The clothes, hats, jewelry, furnishings and fabrics from times past were so very appealing to me, especially the gorgeous and splashy fabrics of the 40s. Victory Gardens had a decidedly 1940s bent, down to the name of the store after the Victory Gardens grown by civilians during the World War II in order to help out. Perhaps I felt I was helping out in a war effort. If only in a singular battle for a better life. I wore dresses that seemed peculiar to folks at the time. Dont forget, this was over thirty years ago and before the retro look. Even most of the people who came into the store in those days had no idea what exactly was going on except that they felt welcome, just as I had first welcomed myself into this garden of delights. The store in Queens was huge and even had room for my Grandmother Stars piano. Oftentimes, my mother was around to play the old songs such as, After the Ballor In the Gloaming. She played, I sang, and the customers joined in while trying on clothes from the period when After the Ball was all the rage. I began meeting people that I still know and still sing those old songs with. People came from Manhattan to spend the day and I served pink champagne and tea sandwiches to the road and subway weary Manhattanites. As the years went by, antique and vintage clothing and jewelry became more and more popular and in demand. Other stores set up shop and we began wholesaling to them. And as time went by, I went further back in time to the more subtle beauty of color and design of other periods; like the 30s and 20s diaphanous and delicate silks. Earlier and earlier pieces crept into my heart and store and I swooned over the clothes and objects I found from the 80s, the l880s. Jet beading, silk taffeta making music as you walked in a skirt made of such splendid fabric. I learned how to sew and designed and made things, compulsively. I even found old crepe paper from a long forgotten basement store and taught myself how to make flowers, and filled the store with gladioli I made from this paper and sold them by the dozens. My husband, at the time, got hooked too and joined me in the endless search for fabrics and designs that were no less than, magnificent. We traveled all over the country and with his interest, we began including the wonderful old things that men wore through times past. Quite a bit of the store became, and still is, devoted to mens clothing.
The store blossomed as our lives did in the oasis, while around us, the world, our neighborhood, fell apart. We were forced to leave when even the police encouraged carrying guns. My friend, Lynda Meyer, who had begun working with me, agreed to leave her life in the East Village and her apartment with the tub in the kitchen and the toilet down the hall for a new life, and after seeing The Europeans, which took place in The Berkshires, it seemed like the thing to do and the place to go. So with Merchant-Ivory pictures dancing in our heads, we opened our new Gardens of wonderful old things in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. My friends, who were all city kids, wondered if we had supermarkets in The Berkshires and couldnt quite understand a move to a country spot that wasnt in one of the Hamptons on Long Island. But 26 years ago, we took the plunge and headed away from the ocean and for the hills. We chose Pittsfield rather than one of the small quaint surrounding towns, for a few reasons, but certainly one was the large city sized stores. We chose a wonderful old building in downtown Pittsfield, one of those old time stores with the high tin ceilings and a long narrow nature that has creaky wooden floors that do creak as you walk from one end to the other. Its a comfortable sound and a comfortable store. The flavor goes further back in time than the first store. Back to the early l900s, and before, with wallpaper that is a copy of a Victorian paper and much old music playing in the background (not, alas, on my Grandmothers piano, but on the stereo). Plenty of Victorian clothes and of course, the wonderful Victorian and Edwardian whites, beginning with these and traveling the decades through to the 50s. I became a good washer-woman, Lynda a good ironer, we worked hand in glove, nip and tuck, developing skills and many devoted customers, including the summer stock theater crowd. The Berkshires, with its large old homes, became a home grown source of clothing, jewelry and furnishings,and so our trips began to abate some as we found connections locally.
A decade ago, I opened a second store in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, a pretty little town that becomes host to thousands of tourists each year, and so our Gardens continue to grow. The Internet held no interest to a past time traveler such as myself. The first time I attempted to use my husband Justus's computer to write a letter, I crashed the thing and was afraid to even look at one sideways. Hair nets were the only nets I would deal with, but then after many suggestions from well meaning and extremely annoying friends, I finally heard the call to become part of the 20th Century before it became the 21st, and so we began to move into a new store, on the Internet. We started off small even though we had enough stuff to choke any clothes horse. This store didnt have defined walls, so I wasn't quite sure how big it would be, or should be, or what it should look like. For those who have seen the original website you will notice that the walls have expanded. Our customers are tourists, browsers and serious collectors and just like them, we want you to feel comfortable and welcome. Also, like our stores, were not only purveyors of the marvelous clothing, jewelry, linens and accessories from the l880s to the l970s, but we have added some new Victorian styled items. Our purist days ended when we opened in Stockbridge and our audience broadened. So you will see many originals, mixed in with the new, but still, the new things are perfect and pretty. We have taken these new things into our life knowing they will become part of the future past perfect treasures. Sometimes we have people stay for hours in our stores, just looking; just enjoying. We hope as we expand and keep adding things, you will visit us regularly.
Carla Lund
