Lisa Newman Paratore had a specific plan in mind when she established her downcity shop Homestyle on Westminster Street four years ago. An interior designer, she envisioned a store devoted to home décor, selling furniture and stylish household accessories, the kind of place where you’d go to find just the right lamp or the perfect accent rug for your home.
But the economy dealt her an unexpected hand.
“The world changed,” she said. “People were not spending as much on their homes. The need for the kind of store I originally envisioned disappeared. I explored additional opportunities and I added a focus on gifts. So the business is not where I originally saw it, but in some ways, I think it’s better. I’ve just added another layer [to what the store offers].”
Paratore, a Rhode Island resident who grew up outside of New York City in western Connecticut, began work as an interior designer after she graduated from Connecticut College in New London with a bachelor’s degree in art and Hispanic studies. She opened her store because “I saw the need for it,” she said.
Noting that plenty of places are devoted to either high-end or low-end home goods, she could find few stores catering to the midrange customer. “As I started working with my [interior design] clients in Rhode Island, I saw very little resources here,” she said. “You had to go to Boston or online” to find the reasonably priced, unique items in which she specializes.
Economic forces were not the only factor leading her to shift focus. The people who frequent her store were a second, perhaps even more compelling, reason. “I listen to my customers,” she said. “Where we found our place in the neighborhood is as a local, service-oriented gift shop where we can help people make choices.”
She described her regular clientele as a mix of students from nearby schools such as Johnson & Wales University, workers employed downtown, downcity residents and visitors from out of town directed to the Westminster Street area by friendly hotel concierges. “If you want to have an authentic downtown Providence shopping experience, this is the place to go,” she said of the attraction for tourists.
Her customers told her they’d like to see more greeting cards for sale at her shop. Often, they would buy a gift, take advantage of Homestyle’s complementary gift-wrapping and then have to go elsewhere for a simple gift card, Paratore explained. So she has tried to have everything needed for successful gift-giving in one place, adding 10 racks of greeting cards to the one rack she began with.
A rack of what look like stuffed animals turns out to be plump hand puppets; there’s a lion with a long mane, a baker in white hat and apron, a pirate, a fireman and a mustachioed policeman in uniform, to cite just a few. A card game is based on the history of art. An interactive book about tickling for toddlers comes with fuzzy mittens for an adult or child to play the role of “tickle monster.”
Paratore prides herself on a constantly changing inventory, a way to draw regular customers back to her shop time and time again. “I stagger shipments, so someone could come in every week and there would be something new to see,” she said. “A large retailer can’t do that.” She estimated that about 80 percent of her inventory changes with the seasons. The other 20 percent comprises perennial staples she always keeps in stock, items that “people buy again and again,” she said.
She gives a great deal of credit to her landlord – Cornish Associates, a private real estate development company owned by Arnold B. “Buff” Jr. Chace and his wife, Johnnie – for making Westminster Street business- and shopper-friendly. “They’ve been proactive about keeping the neighborhood vibrant during the toughest times,” Paratore said. “They go out of their way to make sure that we [merchants] are OK and that there are reasons for people to come here and shop.”
Paratore also has kept her hand in the interior-design business on a freelance basis as Lisa Newman Interiors LLC and is currently working with a “This Old House” crew on the makeover of a Barrington home. •
COMPANY PROFILE
Homestyle
OWNER: Lisa Newman Paratore
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Home décor and gift shop
LOCATION: 229 Westminster St., Providence
EMPLOYEES: 3
YEAR FOUNDED: 2007
ANNUAL SALES: WND
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