BRATTLEBORO — Two downtown businesses are closing soon, but for different reasons.
For Alison Macrae, the owner of Verde for Garden and Home on 133 Main St., it's a chance to retire after 13 years of operation.
“I want to spend more time with my family, here in Vermont, in Brooklyn, in Portland, Maine, and in the UK,” Macrae wrote in a letter to her customers in her shop window. “Especially in Bushwick, the newly trendy part of Brooklyn when my one-year-old granddaughter, Parker, lives with her parents.”
For Anne Senni, the owner of At the Oasis, a contemporary women's clothing and jewelry store on 80 Main St. in business for 37 years, it's just time to move on.
“It's been a good, long stretch of wonderful years for myself and my family, but it's time to go. I will truly miss my wonderful, loyal customers and I thank them all for so many years of support, ” Senni said in a email to friends of the store.
At The Oasis started its life downstairs at Candle In The Night, another downtown landmark business, in the 1970s. It moved to 80 Main in 1994.
Verde opened in 1991, a few years after Macrae and her friend, Kris McDermet, started Brattleboro Area Hospice's wildly successful thrift store, Experienced Goods.
Macrae's store specializes in high-end garden tools and decorative items for the home.
Both Verde and At The Oasis are holding liquidation sales over the coming weeks. Senni and Macrae both advise their customers to check the stores' respective Facebook pages for updates.