Feuerherm and Hoff, a new art and antiques store, opened this month at 400 Front St. in Greenport as the ebb and flow of businesses in the maritime village continues. The shop offers vintage and antique art, furniture, lighting, textiles, pottery and other objects of decorative interest, as well as restoration services.
Lisa Feuerherm and Mark Hoff, partners in business and in life, decided to open the shop together after Hoff moved to the North Fork last year. “I’ve been collecting, buying and selling antiques for about 30 years, mostly based in Rhode Island, where I lived for 25 years,” says Hoff. “Lisa and I have been talking about doing something together that involves our mutual and complementary passions.”
Feuerherm, a fashion designer and a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, spent over 20 years working in Italy in Florence and Milan and moved back to New York six years ago. “I came from a family of fine artists, and my father was an avid collector of ceramics and art … so we had a lot of common interests,” she notes.
The couple met three years ago and now reside in Greenport, a short walk from their Front Street shop, which is a new venture for both of them.
“It was, I think, a logical next step,” says Hoff. “I sell at Brimfield [Antiques Show in Brimfield, Massachusetts; the largest outdoor antiques show in the country] and at antique fairs and to other dealers, so opening a full-scale retail space was kind of like a logical next step for me,” he says. “Lisa’s talents are complementary, so it made sense for us to try it.”
The shop features such items as a mid-century modern rosewood sideboard by Kai Kristiansen, ethnographic textiles, and primarily 19th and 20th century art “with maybe a focus on outsider art,” says Hoff. Come spring, garden, stoneware and ironware items will be added to the store’s inventory.
Restoration work will be ongoing, too, with Hoff currently restoring a Renaissance Revival carved oak screen and Lisa repainting an enormous trophy tarpon, which the couple figures is over a hundred years old. “He’s going up on the wall soon,” Feuerherm says. “Mark did the structural repairs, and I did the painting and refinishing of it.”
As spring approaches, the shop will extend its hours, and the couple is looking forward to meeting members of the community. “It’s great because there are so many different creative types around Greenport and Southold and all the other communities on the North Fork. It feels really great to be engaged with the community in this way,” says Hoff.
“I just think it’s a good fit,” says Feuerherm. “It’s an evolution of who we are. I was always attracted to the area. I started coming out here years ago to visit dear friends in Southold and fell in love with the area … I needed a home base in the States, and I had already a nice network of friends here, so it seemed a great place to move to.”
Visitors to the shop will also meet Nina, Hoff’s standard poodle, who is a constant presence. “She’s 11 years old, and she loves it here,” says Hoff. “We will probably welcome other dogs, too,” says Feuerherm.
The shop will have regular weekend hours through the winter on Saturdays and Sundays, from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and will be open the occasional Friday. For more information, check Feuerherm and Hoff’s Instagram here.
