This article is a guest contribution from Sylvia Griffin, the 81-year old mom of the mother/daughter team behind Boerne Farmhouse. This is the second article in our Mothers & Daughters of Main Street series, highlighting local family-run businesses on Main.
One of Cindy Carr’s favorite parts of opening the Boerne Farmhouse early each morning is to walk the store and turn on the lights – illuminating the displays of architectural artifacts, salvaged wooden slabs, reclaimed doors, lifelike botanicals and a plethora of unique décor pieces.
“I love this time of day before opening, when I’m surrounded by the beauty and quiet of the shop,” says Carr, adding, “I see it all with fresh eyes and renewed enthusiasm, and I can gather my thoughts and address my financial tasks with a clear head.” That clear head – plus a business background in economics and banking, and a 10-year history of retail ownership in Pleasanton, perfectly qualify her to manage those tasks such as buying, accounting, and store logistics.
“I’m the left-brained person with a right-brained passion,” says Carr, 51, adding “Mom is the one with the right-brain gift, and she handles the design direction of the shop.”
“Mom” is Sylvia Griffin, 81, Carr’s partner in the venture, who serves as the unofficial creative director and all-around encourager.
It’s a collaboration that evolved over decades of the close-knit duo sharing a love of all things design. Griffin, a Houston public relations company owner, gained her knowledge through clients in architecture, interior design and fine living, while Carr gained wisdom through the experience of renovating and flipping countless homes. Although they didn’t live in the same cities, they always found themselves consulting with each other for ideas and inspiration. And all the while, they longed for a serious design project that they could do together – in person.
The opportunity arose after Griffin and her husband moved to Boerne from Houston in 2002, and Carr and her family relocated from Pleasanton in 2016 for Boerne schools.
Together at last, they explored projects like flipping homes, b&b ownership, and home-staging. But when Carr couldn’t get retail out of her heart, they found a small space downtown in which to launch their own home décor store.
It didn’t take the two partners long to realize that the scale of architectural salvage that they wanted to deal in didn’t match the scale of available space downtown – so they soon found the perfect building, south of downtown, next to what was then the Dog & Pony Grill. There was roughly 3000 square feet of rustic space in a log cabin format, with lots of parking and room for big delivery trucks to come and go.
And so, in late 2018, Boerne Farmhouse came to be.
“Our first task was to develop a mission statement,” says Carr, “Mom and I agreed immediately: we wanted every customer to leave the shop happier than when they came in.”
Not a sophisticated business plan, but totally from the heart.
The design goal, added Griffin, was to create an environment that illustrated how to meld old and new décor to create a comfortable, layered home environment, blending both style and character.
The result is an eclectic, curated collection of antique, vintage and new items with a sense of design that soothes and stimulates at the same time. A space where visitors sigh with pleasure upon entering. A destination where people come regularly for their “Farmhouse Fix.”
Carr works hard to keep a consistent online presence on social media – with photos of the shop’s newest goods and, frequently, pictures of how customers have integrated them into their homes. “It’s fun to highlight how a customer comes in with no clue of what they want for a dining table arrangement,” she says. “If they approach me with that conundrum, I’m like a deer in the headlights; but Mom is a natural, and before long – after a few circuits of the shop with the customer, the perfect items are found, and Mom has whipped them into a stunning arrangement! The customer is super-pleased, and I’m like, ‘how did that even happen?’ Perfect time for a photo-op!
Griffin demurs that she’s not the only one in the shop with a natural gift for design: “We have a staff of creative, smart women who excel at helping our customers bring their design dreams to life,” she says.
If it seems like owning a store with your mom or daughter is a dream job, in this case, it is. “We are sometimes asked if we have power struggles or disagreements on issues, says Carr: “I think that, rather than one person overruling another, our respect for each other’s gifts just naturally guides us in our decision-making. There’s an ease to working things out together that we really can’t take credit for: it’s a God thing.”
You can visit Boerne Farmhouse at 1499 S Main St.