Part of that business, Mr. Crawford said, would be to offer a curated mix of items considered both beautiful and the best of their kind. “And if it didn’t exist, we’d try to make it,” he said.
When Gardenheir’s website debuted, in September 2021, it sold the clogs and some shirts and hats from its line, along with Haws watering cans, Sneeboer tools and workwear from Le Laboureur, a French brand. It also resold some items purchased at thrift and antique stores by Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calpe, who by then were spending most of their time in Windham. Mr. Calpe had also left his career in art education to focus on the business.
Six months later, they were contacted by Kristin Soong Rapoport, a managing partner at Wildflower Farms, a boutique hotel operated by Auberge Resorts in Gardiner, N.Y., about an hour’s drive from Windham. Ms. Soong Rapoport said she reached out after discovering Gardenheir’s Instagram account to see if Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calpe would open a shop at the hotel.
“We wanted a really different shop than your typical hotel gift shop,” Ms. Soong Rapoport said, adding that the men had an eye for “things that are not commonplace.”
“They pick pieces that have a timeless, heirloom quality,” she said.
At the hotel shop, which opened last October, gardening gloves, hand trowels, Gardenheir clogs and chore coats are sold alongside vintage birdhouses and other décor. Ms. Soong Rapoport said customers have included Laura Kim, a creative director of Oscar de la Renta, who bought a straw hat.
Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calpe said they had no intention of opening a store when they started Gardenheir. But after seeing the interest in their hotel shop, they opened a sort of Gardenheir flagship last November at a shopping center in Windham, in a space they had originally rented to use as a shipping warehouse for their growing business. It has the feel of a general store, with tools displayed on a massive pegboard, a few racks of clothes and shelves full of botanical-scented candles, ceramics and, yes, the clogs.
