Eleish Van Breems Home, the eponymous Scandinavian home furnishings and antiques brand with locations in Westport and Nantucket, Massachusetts, opens its latest store in New Preston in Litchfield County, Connecticut, on Saturday, Dec. 9 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Owners Rhonda Eleish and Edie Van Breems, plan to continue transporting clients to a Nordic retreat that celebrates Scandinavian style and craftsmanship while embracing the sensibility and ease of living in the country.
No strangers to Litchfield County, the pair are delighted to return after a nearly 30-year hiatus. “A dream come true and really coming full circle” is how Eleish described bringing Eleish Van Breems Home to New Preston. She and best friend Van Breems started their company 27 years ago in an 18th-century house and barn down the road in Woodbury. When the opportunity arose to open in the previous Dawn Hill Antiques, the two leapt at the chance to be in what had also been New Preston’s post office and market in the 1900s, located at base of the village across from a roaring waterfall.
True to their passion for historic preservation that began in Woodbury, they next renovated an original supply and grain commodity building in Westport, with rail lines running underneath. Then they added a shop on the harbor on Nantucket Island, rich in history and also right in the heart of downtown. So it’s quite fitting that they return to Litchfield County in an historic 20th-century building.
As in their other retail shops, the New Preston location carries Gustavian and Rococo antiques as well as Scandinavian mid-century furniture masters rubbing shoulders with sustainable contemporary furniture makers Verellen, CaneLine and Thayer Coggin. Sofas and chairs upholstered in Belgian linens and performance fabrics, handcrafted walnut and ash lamps, tables and case goods, rugs, lighting by Louis Poulsen and St Louis invite you into the main rooms. The Scandinavian theme continues as you pass into the Dish Room, serving up Nordic tableware, linens, gifts and home goods in a nod to the building’s previous shop owner, Paulette Peden. In this sun-drenched room, you’ll find Swedish and Finnish heritage brands such as Gustavsberg, Marimekko and Skutuna and newer product designers like Denmark’s Hein Studio – all geared to the hygge (HYOO guh), or cozy comfort, that defines the Scandinavian lifestyle and, no doubt, our desires in winter.
Eleish Van Breems Home New Preston will also feature the store’s Swedish Tomtes gnomes. Each one is handmade by a family of sheep farmers in Dalarna with a traditional Swedish textile artist. Said Eleish: “They really are such fun and represent the magic of the North.”
For her, there’s no place like gnome, er, home. And New Preston “truly is like coming home.”
Eleish Van Breems Home, at 11 Main St. in New Preston, is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays and by appointment. For more, click here.
