“Textiles were always my true love,” says Laura Huron, owner of Bosco’s Mercantile and Bosco’s Little Shop in Saugerties. In 2016, she stepped away from a decades-long corporate career in visual merchandising to become a shopkeeper, bringing years of expertise and a finely honed aesthetic to the project.
Beginning in the early ’90s, Huron worked for brands like Armani, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Urban Outfitters, helping to develop and launch several iconic home lines and traveling across the country setting up shop-in-shops—branded, retail installations within larger department stores. “My world has really been in corporate but always with companies that were sort of starting out, developing offshoots of their brand, so you had that creative initiative, which I love,” Huron says. “When you are there out of the gate, you are instrumental in creating the look and feel of the brand.” But even as she styled national ad campaigns for well-known brands, in the back of her head Huron dreamed of opening a little bedding store. When and where, she had no idea.
Five years ago, Huron was at a crossroads in her life, winding down her engagement with Finnish brand Marimekko, when she went to spend Thanksgiving with her cousin’s family at their new house in Saugerties. “Something about the village felt very enchanting and charming to me,” she recalls. “In all honesty, I had never been to the Hudson Valley—it wasn’t my thing.” She walked into the clothing store Dig and struck up a conversation about the town with the owner, Daisy Bolle, who showed her the space next door.
“With that atrium and the magic garden, I just thought, ‘this is kind of perfect,” Huron remembers. “I sat down with my dearest and most talented friend Jeff Lee and we worked on a rendering, sent it to the owner, and said, ‘I hear Daisy doesn’t want this space, would you be interested?’” Three months later, she packed up her life and moved to Saugerties. “That is NOT the way to do it,” Huron says, cackling good-naturedly.
The evidence would beg to differ. Five years later, Bosco’s Mercantile is a thriving bedding and home goods shop on Partition Street, stocking ethically and sustainably made products, from organic linens and throws to vintage indigo-dyed throw pillows and tabletop ceramics.
“When I first opened, it was all brands that I was personally using and loved—companies I had admired, companies that are ethically sound,” Huron says. “That is what I wanted my shop to represent—if I didn’t personally use it, I couldn’t stand behind it.” The inventory has expanded since then as Huron has been able to sample more broadly. Now, in store and online, you can browse through plush terry cloth bathrobes from Dusen Dusen; waffle towels from Hawkins New York; organic cotton, flannel, and linen bedding from Coyuchi; lambswool and alpaca throws from Harlow Henry; throw pillows made by artisans in Latin America from Hudson-based brand Minna; even ethical down duvets.
And it’s not just delicious, cozy bedding. Huron also stocks a wide array of candles from brands from Boy Smells and Apotheke to Anecdote Candle and Particle Goods. Her small, curated apothecary inventory includes bath products from Compagnie de Provence, Wary Meyers, Jessie + Elizabeth, and Sweet Bella.
And this past June, Huron launched Bosco’s Little Shop, which carries fashion for women (and eventually for men, too). “I had always carried one rail of apparel at Bosco’s of things that are very special to me,” she says. “And taking a look at the amount of business I was driving off of one rail, it felt to me like Saugerties was missing that sort of mid-price-point product.”
Huron teamed up with her friend, Ciera Wells-Jones, a set designer, who leased her space in a building on Main Street and built out the custom fixtures. The shop stocks items like block-printed dresses from Mata Traders, which works with artisans in Nepal and India; and Italian-made cashmere cardigans from MJ Watson.
“We are loving it,” Huron says. “It’s going to evolve to what I want it to be, I just opened with what I had. We’ve been very well received and we’re loving the customers.”
Being in the shop day after day, helping customers, and talking products has been an adjustment for Huron, who was used to swooping in, designing spaces, and jetting off again. She’s settled into it, but once a visual merchandiser, always a visual merchandiser. “It’s been really fun to create a space that I love to be in and I hope others love to come to,” Huron says. “It’s really about making an environment that creates joy.”
Bosco’s Mercantile
89A Partition Street, Saugerties
(845) 247-3157
Bosco’s Little Shop
230 Main Street, Saugerties
(845) 247-3224
