It’s been a busy 10 years for Brooks William. After transferring from Princeton to Parsons The New School to study design and management, he went on to work for a number of luminaries in the interiors world, including Kelly Wearstler and Michael Smith in LA, Robert Couturier in NYC, and Steven Volpe in SF.
During that time, Brooks’s parents relocated from Lexington, Kentucky, where he grew up, to Columbus, Ohio. In Columbus, Brooks spotted an available street-front space in a 1920s building on the corner of Gay and High Streets, “the epicenter of downtown,” and saw an opportunity to take his next step. “Opening a store has always been a dream of mine,” he tells us, “championing artists and things made by hand is at the heart of what I do.”
Brooks, who is 31, also found a business partner: his mother, Lisa Barger, formerly ran her own insurance brokerage and before that did home staging. She was all in. Artisans &, their newly opened emporium, presents their favorite high-style, handmade home accessories, from vintage Nantucket baskets to a Brooklyn friend’s spatterware, each accompanied by an origin story. Stay tuned for the online shop; better yet, stop in and allow Brooks and Lisa to help you find what you’re looking for.
Photography courtesy of Artisans & (@artisans_and).
The goods on offer include David Mellor cutlery and tableware from the UK—”since the 1950s, they’ve been creating finely crafted objects meant for everyday use rather than just decoration,” notes Brooks. The number-shaped beeswax birthday candles are by Waxing Moon, a one-woman atelier in Missoula, Montana. The ladder displays block-printed tablecloths from Studio Ford of Los Angeles.
The placemats, $35, are woven from hand-harvested English bulrush by Remodelista favorite Rush Matters, Felicity Irons’s workshop: “I love that these are sort of living objects in that the rush initially appears green in tone and fades to a gorgeous golden honey over time,” says Brooks. “When we opened our first order, the smell was like being in the English countryside.”
The 8-foot-long draper’s table is one of two made from reclaimed wood: Brooks and Lisa got word from their millworker that a barn had fallen in Johnstown, Ohio, and hand picked the boards themselves.
The wooden shop counter came out of a textile factory in the Netherlands.
Artisans & is located at 56 N High Street in Columbus, Ohio.
Best browsing around the world? Here are more favorites:
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- Sanne Hop’s Creative Atelier in Amsterdam
- Block Shop in LA Makes a Spirited Case for Color and Pattern
- Landline in Paris: A French-American Shopkeeper’s Answer to Plastic-Free Living
Before taking a trip, be sure to consult our Design Travel and Shopper’s Diary archives for ideas.
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