Nellie & Bean Mercantile Opens in Verona

It’s apropos Nellie Criqui named her new shop after herself and her daughter — Nellie & Bean Mercantile is filled with things she and her 12-year-old love.

“It’s preppy, it’s modern, it’s bohemian, but it’s me,” said Criqui Tuesday looking around the space long occupied by Nature’s Corner, at 840 Bloomfield Ave. in Verona.

The shop is located in a charming old building with a farmhouse feel near the border of North Caldwell.

Criqui painted the interior a crisp white and has set up vignettes around the shop highlighting items by categories, such as gifts for home, women, men, baby and tweens. You can also order custom-designed living room, dining room and occasional furniture as well as lamps from a stack of catalogs. Many items can be monogrammed, and she’ll create gift baskets and ship camp care packages.

“I’m trying to take sort of an old-fashioned concept where you can get a wedding gift, $18 earrings and children’s candy all in the same place,” Criqui said.

Right now the shop feels warm and summery — well-stocked with Roberta Freymann tunics, beach bags and jewelry in an assortment of price points and Turkish towels she discovered when visiting a friend in Venice Beach, Calif.

“They dry quickly and you can easily fit three in a beach bag,” Criqui said, highly recommending they replace your run-of-the-mill beach towels.

Individuality is important after all to the Long Island native, who admits to being a little quirky. “Be a fruit loop in a world full of cheerios,” is one of her favorite sayings.

Criqui grew up in a “water town” on Long Island. She studied at Colorado State University, where she said her friends would ask her to decorate their dormrooms. She ended up in Essex Fells, the town where her husband grew up, 12 years ago and is the mother of three: Bean, who helps buy for the tween section, and her two younger brothers.

Criqui’s eye for design made the pages of Country Living in March 2010. The magazine featured the couples’ Cooperstown vacation home inspired by a Swedish farmhouse.

In fact, she considered opening a seasonal shop in Cooperstown until she fell in-love with this space in Verona.

Visit Nellie & Bean Mercantile's website for more information. Online shopping coming soon.