There’s something for everyone in this beautiful little hamlet.

Last month, Estro New York opened in the former Wilson’s Bread premises on Main Street in Andes. This eclectic new design store with “furniture, art and objects”, mostly vintage, joins coffee shops, diners, a grocery store, book store, a working farm, art galleries, a hotel-restaurant-bar owned by one of the community’s most committed members, the tasting room of a local cider-maker, library, historical society, vintage clothing stores, record shop, wine store, a yoga studio, and finally, an art space, where weekly figure drawing classes are held during the summer by the cool, babbling brook that runs through the town. 

*Pauses to take a deep breath* Have I left anything out? 

All these businesses make this gorgeous little hamlet one of the Great Western Catskills’ most diverse small towns. 

Estro New York’s home is a large stone masonry warehouse building built in 1922 that was purchased last year by Harry and Sara, a young couple with a New York City media background, who met in Brooklyn and have a baby on the way. They spent six months renovating and had their opening party in May 2025. “It was a dilapidated warehouse with holes in the ceiling. We had to put a new roof on it,” says Sara. The building was once home to the weekly local farmers market, and historically has been a car garage, food pantry and non-profit warehouse.

Now the building is divided into three sections: an expansive furniture store in the main hall, and two small shop fronts. One shopfront, the former site of Wilson’s Bread will be a grocery store initially stocking kitchen essentials like canned goods, pasta and a small amount of dairy, and the other shopfront will be rented out to a local architect. 

The furniture store has a bright and airy vibe selling unique statement pieces: think solid, well-crafted wood and sleek silhouettes, sourced from Europe: Scandinavian, French, English, Italian, 1960s vintage. 

“Even if [one of the pieces] doesn’t look new, it’s got character,” says Sara. “It’s been lived in. It’s been loved”. Like the two massive easy chairs that we lounge in to do the interview that look – and feel – like giant, square, corduroy, propped-up pillows. They welcome the body in a way that a stiff armchair couldn’t, making it difficult for me to leave.

There’s an art collection too, including a large abstract canvas by local artist Emily Johnston, and lots of vivid color like a vermillion sliding door, and the splashes of a warm yellow on their website and social media reflecting the couple’s optimistic and enthusiastic personalities. The store is so large that they have displayed some of the over-sized pieces from nearby gallery Hawk & Hive on a back wall.

The entire contents of the store has been personally collected over the years by Sara and much of it was once piled up in their New York City apartment, so “we had do something about it”. A former lawyer, Sara had been in advertising for several years when she first thought about changing careers. “I wanted to start a furniture store, but it would have been far too expensive in NYC. Then came COVID, and I began some online classes in Interior Design at Parsons and in the process decided that, actually, I prefer finding and sourcing all the furniture for projects much more than doing other things like creating a room, picking the paint colors and dealing with the client. In my job in advertising, I was always client-facing and I wanted a break from that”. 

Harry, who works in branding and is a strategist for hotels and other clients, still works remotely from their Catskills home, but did the carpentry for the grocery store, building out the shelves. “Harry loves to problem-solve, build and fix and I love to renovate”, says Sara. One of Harry’s future projects is to have a workshop in the back of the store and teach carpentry classes.

Sara also envisages a lot of other creative projects running in tandem with the store. “I do styling work and interior design and it helps to have customers visit the store and see what my taste is”. 

“We were both on computers 24/7 and buying this building was a big outlet. We can now put all of our hobbies and interests into something we love”. 

I asked them to tell me something that they really wanted people to know about them. 

Says Harry: “Moving to Andes has given us so much already: community, time, space, beauty, freedom to take risks, and we’re really excited to give some of that energy back to the town. We never imagined our lives like this in the city before we came across Andes. I grew up outside of major cities and this is a life we never anticipated for ourselves. We are so much happier here than we thought we would be”.

Estro New York, 143 Main Street, Andes, NY. Open Sat & Sun 11-4pm. Weekdays by appointment.