Nautical Needles Ships Off to Deep River
A town center anchor tenant for 17 years, Nautical Needles’ owner Sue Lennox has decided to move her business to new space in Deep River as of Oct. 1, and will close her Westbrook store on Sept. 30. She won’t be looking back with nostalgia.
“The town has never been good to me here. Since I moved in, the people in charge of the town have treated me like I’m from another country and had a strip club here,” said Lennox. “All I hear through the grapevine is that people say we need something good in town center like gift shops. This place was vacant for 12 to 16 years before I came in. There was black paper on the windows.”
Town Planner Meg Parulis said of Lennox’s move, “We will absolutely miss her presence in town center. It was a business that contributed to a vibrant town center.”
Parulis explained that the town center area faces a challenging problem: There just isn’t adequate septic system capacity to give property owners an incentive to upgrade their buildings. More intensive water-using tenants like restaurants, as a result, cannot easily located there due to the limited septic capacity.
“There are things the town can do, like improving infrastructure that fosters and supports more private investment in the town center,” said Parulis.
Parulis said she has already heard, for example, that the new town center parking lot at Route One and Knothe Road, built mostly with state grant funds, has led to an increase in the number of patrons at some nearby businesses like Turtle Café, so public investment can support and spur business opportunities.
The New Deep River Store
Nautical Needles’ new Deep River location at 500 Main Street, Suite 6, will be behind Ashleigh’s Garden in the Mislick Properties industrial park. The new larger space will allow her to consolidate her two business operations in one place: a custom furniture shop now on Center Road and the custom upholstery, drapes, and cushions shop that also sells home accessories on Westbrook Place. The move has spurred her to expand the line of home decorating accessories she sells, too. With this change, she decided to change the business name so that the Deep River store will be known as Eileen and Taylor, a division of Nautical Needles.
“I’m going to have a larger showroom in Deep River and by Jan. 1, there will be more home decorating accessories on display and for sale,” said Lennox. “I’m really excited. People are going to have a much nicer experience. They’ll be able to have a cup of coffee while they look at fabrics.”
Lennox, a life-long Westbrook resident and a graduate of Westbrook High School, started Nautical Needles 35 years ago as a business that made canvases and cushions for boats; then she was located in a tiny space in Pilots Point Marina.