In three years, what started out as a side hustle for Sarah Brown has become much more than that.
When she launched her online home and lifestyle shop Blair & Blythe, Brown worked primarily as a mental health counselor and was looking for a creative outlet on the side.
She filled her shop with the types of “elevated” items she said she often found herself seeking out for her own home and lifestyle. Not long after launching, Blair & Blythe “completely took off”, eventually adding on interior design services, as well.
In just a couple of weeks, customers will be able to shop for their favorite items in person.
Blair & Blythe will celebrate the grand opening of its new storefront in Westwood on Feb. 15.
Blair & Blythe is opening at 4812 Rainbow Blvd.
- The store is moving into a roughly 6,000-square-foot building on the northwest corner of 48th Terrace and Rainbow Boulevard, next to Westwood Animal Hospital.
- The space previously was home to locally-owned furrier Ambience Furs, before the store closed at the end of 2023.
- Once it opens, Blair & Blythe’s regular hours will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday.
Blair & Blythe offers decor, furniture and lifestyle goods
Blair & Blythe offers a range of items for the home — from smaller decor items like dinnerware and hand towels to larger furniture items like chairs, tables and lamps.
Walking into the new Westwood space, customers will be greeted with items like vintage art, custom chairs, Mahjong games, glassware and a large fine china set on display.
Painting is currently underway on the store’s interior walls, with lots of pinks and blues planned.
In the back of the store, interior design clients will have a space to sit down and look at samples and materials, pick out colors and gain inspiration for how they want their home to look.
Brown said her goal with creating Blair & Blythe is to provide a mix of both classic and modern pieces from which customers can choose.
That’s sort of what she aimed for when choosing the name as well — one traditional name and one trendy name, to reflect the goal of the brand.
“I just wanted to create a beautiful space that really just shouted out at you the moment you walked in,” she said. “Each of my seasonal collections pulls from the season’s trends and the market’s trends, but we’ll always have an underlying foundation of traditionalism.”
This is Blair & Blythe’s first brick-and-mortar store
Blair & Blythe got its start online in January 2022.
The decision to bring the concept into a brick-and-mortar storefront stemmed largely from the “sheer interest” and demand in the community for local business, Brown said.
“The area just consistently requests more shopping experiences and brick-and-mortar stores to go to that are small and locally-owned,” she said. “I feel like I have come to learn from and build amazing relationships with so many small business owners here.”
Brown and her husband are Westwood residents themselves, so purchasing the former Ambience Furs space from its previous owners (another local entrepreneurial couple, she added) just steps from their own neighborhood made natural sense.
“This building is almost 100 years old, and it’s seen so many owners and businesses come in,” she said. “The excitement that the community has for my store has been a huge motivator. Everyone is just so excited to have something like this here.”
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