Colin Holmes and the Pleasure of a Home Built Piece by Piece

A home need not arrive all at once. It can take shape around a piece you keep, an object you discover and the space still waiting for the right thing. That is an appealing way to think about Colin Holmes, the home, garden and gift shop at 87 Main Street in Nyack.

The store’s own description puts antique French clocks in the same broad collection as upholstery, artwork, garden decor and jewelry. Old and new are deliberately part of the mix. The interesting possibility is not a room assembled to match a display, but one with enough variety to feel personal. A small gift and a substantial piece of furniture belong to different shopping missions; here, both are part of the stated offering.

There is also a useful detail beyond the inventory list: the shop says Colin will help source what a customer is looking for when it is not in stock. That makes an unfinished idea a reasonable starting point for a conversation. You do not have to begin with a complete room in mind.

Local reporting adds a practical chapter to that approach. In a June 2023 Nyack News & Views story, owner Colin Holmes described customers who had moved from city apartments into larger homes and needed more furniture after the store reopened following lockdown. It is a dated observation, not a claim about today’s market, but an illuminating one: a shop like this can meet people while their idea of home is changing.

Even the address has had other lives. Historian Mike Hays reported in Nyack News & Views that 87 Main Street housed Hegner’s Café, complete with a billiard table, in 1898. A place now associated with furnishings has its own history of being furnished for a very different purpose.

That is a fitting backdrop for a shop whose range crosses eras and scales. For someone who prefers to let a home develop piece by piece, Colin Holmes offers a local place to start the search.