After going to Martha’s Winery for lots of yrs, longtime New Yorkers Mark Chung and Eric Coles manufactured the leap to yr-spherical Island living in 2017, carrying with them a aspiration to open up a tiny business. With their backgrounds in trend, housewares, retail and images, their eyesight for a present day-day basic keep came to lifestyle on Principal Avenue in Vineyard Haven when they opened Lennox & Harvey in the spring of 2018. Named for Eric and Mark’s grandfathers, who have been the two jazz musicians, Lennox & Harvey is a curated selection of effectively-made clothes and residence goods with an eye to sustainability and sensible natural beauty.
Q. What were you both of those undertaking in advance of you moved here?
Mark: Right before we moved in this article, we lived in Brooklyn. I was a chef and experienced a cafe for about 5 decades. Just after I closed my small business, I labored for a selection of housewares and furniture brand names, such as an Italian organization identified as Kartell, and a firm called Alessi. And in advance of we moved listed here, the even bigger model was Herman Miller, which we promote in the retail store now.
Eric: I labored in the audio marketplace 1st, then manner and afterwards images. Nowadays I still operate a pictures studio in New York. Bookings are carried out by e mail or cellular phone so I can do that and still be here. But I go again for a pair of months every single month. I worked in manner for a long time so the notion of the retail outlet when we moved right here was that we could meld structure and trend into a normal products shop.
Sustainable outfits is section of the blend.
— Jeanna Shepard
Q. When did you very first arrive to the Winery?
Eric: We first rented in the summer time of 1995 and retained coming up listed here just about each and every 12 months. We would drop off some several years and then appear back again with additional close friends and appear back again on our personal.
Mark: We commenced renting homes in Oak Bluffs and then the previous household we rented was off Lambert’s Cove. That is in which we fell in adore with getting able to wander to the beach front.
Eric: And then we bought our house in 2015. We’re in Oak Bluffs, not significantly from The Sailing Camp. We started out coming up here as late as November and as early as March and we beloved it as substantially as we did in the summer months. We assumed, “Oh, we could stay in this article.” But we had to figure out a source of earnings. We had constantly required to open up a store – a menswear retail outlet in Manhattan – but there was as well much levels of competition and it was also expensive. Then we imagined we’d do it a several several years later on in Brooklyn, but once again – as well substantially level of competition and also expensive.
Q. But at very last, you opened Lennox & Harvey in 2018. How did the pandemic influence the very last couple of several years?
Eric: We had been genuinely lucky due to the fact we opened our on-line organization the identical working day we opened the storefront. We often experienced a internet site the place you could acquire anything. When men and women couldn’t go into the retail store, a ton of them required to assistance smaller businesses like us so they commenced purchasing on-line.
Mark: We truly started off delivering to people all about the Island. They could buy on the web and we would provide it to them! It was type of pleasurable for us and stored us fast paced till we had been capable to open the doors in August of that initial Covid calendar year.
Video games, seaside items, coffee makers, home furnishings — diligently chosen merchandise for the property are on screen at Lennox & Harvey.
— Jeanna Shepard
Q. How would you explain your retail store to those who might not know about you?
Eric: We contact it a fashionable-working day common merchandise store, with important objects for the property, the seashore and the body. It harkens again to the aged-time basic suppliers exactly where you could get an apron or instruments or sweatshirts or cleaning soap. We have all individuals categories but at an elevated stage.
Mark: The only factor we never promote is food!
Eric: But we have gorgeous factors for the back garden, wonderful sweaters, an apothecary section with suntan oil, skin-care products.
Mark: You can purchase furniture, you can get a coffee maker, sun shades, it is all very carefully blended in.
Q. What would you say have been some of your most common products and solutions?
Eric: The first issue that will come to mind is dresses. For the reason that this community is really beachy and casual, we thought it would be superior to inventory really simple, kind of flowy, interesting, everyday, outsized dresses – excellent for the seaside, great for supper. And as it turns out, they have been incredibly well-known.
Mark: Revenue of our men’s garments, like sweatshirts and pants, have grown way too. We look to have figured that out, so that is been some thing that is absent actually well for us in the final yr or so. We also offer a ton of blankets and pillows and minimal gifts, like housewarming and hostess items.
Q. What do you think will fly off the cabinets this year?
Eric: It is so tough to say for the reason that usually we’ll be on the lookout at something to obtain and say, “Oh, this is incredible, we love it!” and still when we set it in the keep, nobody cares! So you cannot seriously say, “Oh I know this will fly off the shelves.” If you say that about just about anything, that is what you’ll be still left with.
Q. Sustainability has turn into a major aim below on the Island. Do you have solutions that fill that invoice?
Eric: We do, actually. Mainly because this is this kind of a world-wide situation, most of the manufacturers we carry are creating products and solutions in a sustainable way. We have a botanical pores and skin treatment line known as Salt and Stone, and they don’t use any aluminum in their products. The packaging for their deodorant is designed of plastic, but of recycled plastic that arrived out of the ocean.
Mark: They also use renewable electrical power to manufacture their solutions. We also carried a line of sweaters in the slide that were all created with recycled cotton and cashmere.
Eric: That ethos is represented in most of the brand names we have and absolutely in us as very well.
Q. Are there problems to executing business here?
Mark: It’s possible delivery – that is a obstacle. When we promote household furniture, it will come more than but it’s a more time method. It costs a minimal bit a lot more just to get it on the boat. So that’s one particular of our worries – big parts of furniture.
Eric: Logistics, sure, is just one detail. One more is that we type of have three diverse organization climates right here. When we open up the shop in Could, the May possibly-June purchaser is various from the July consumer, and that client is different from the August shopper. And then the Oct customer is distinctive as well. So you have to imagine when getting things for the retail outlet – which year will this fit in? That is not one thing we necessarily assumed about right before.
Q. What do you like about what you do?
Mark: I enjoy acquiring new makes, obtaining factors that are interesting and that people love. Around the past four yrs, we’ve achieved so several astounding people today and I really like viewing them come again to the retail outlet calendar year following yr. I enjoy the relationship that we have produced.
Eric: I agree, the persons we have achieved. I was involved with the Island Housing Rely on for a couple of a long time. The other detail we equally love is design and style. When a merchandise is really well built and thoughtfully made, that really will get us fired up.
Q. When you are not performing, what do you adore to do?
Mark: I adore likely to all the farms. That’s my preferred detail to do. There are so a lot of wonderful farms listed here and so considerably contemporary food. And then there is the seafood! I love clams, so I go clamming way too.
Eric: I love to swim. I like the ocean so significantly that I swim from May well to November. When it is far too cold after that to remain in, I will continue to do a plunge a pair of times a week to invigorate myself. I appreciate it.
Q. And what do you adore about this Island?
Eric: The feeling of local community right here is quite sturdy. As much as we experienced our mates in New York city exactly where we spent most of our life, I never ever obtained the perception of local community that I get in this article. And I sense like you can only get it in a location like this.
Mark: Correct. I sense absolutely everyone right here wanted us to endure and prosper. Every person we satisfied advised other pals, and folks listened to of us by word of mouth. They desired to make sure we did effectively.
Paula Lyons is a previous tv purchaser journalist dwelling in Vineyard Haven.
