Colleen’s Dream of Leonardtown Calling It Quits

After 15 years, a pillar of the Leonardtown business renaissance is calling it quits.

Neither the economy nor a fall-off in business is forcing Colleen’s Dream to close, said Jane Nau, half of the partnership of sisters who opened the shop on Fenwick Street just off the Square in Leonardtown in 1997.

“It’s time for me to do other things,” Ms. Nau said this week in The Brewing Grounds, a coffee and sandwich shop across Fenwick Street from her vintage clothing and antiques shop.

Defined by top-drawer vintage clothing of all eras, Colleen’s Dream always includes an eclectic array of vintage paraphernalia from cosmetics to cocktails. And the shop continues to carry antiques and unique collectibles. A jacket in the shop today dates to the Civil War along with a 1970’s dress which came from a clothing museum in New York.

Ms. Nau and her sister Carol Cullison opened Colleen’s Dream in 1997 in the back of an antique shop located in one of the trio of commercial units in the building which their partnership now owns.

During the course of its 15 years its products and square footage has expanded and contracted. Since purchasing the building they began subletting segments of the three storefronts to start-up businesses as Leonardtown’s business district grew.

Similar to the traditional American downtowns, Leonardtown’s shops lined the sidewalks of the streets in the center of town. Proprietors’ homes were above where today are apartments.

The decision to go into business was a segue for Ms. Nau to move to St. Mary’s County where her parents and grandparents lived and where she spent her childhood summers.  Once the sisters had made the decision to go into business there was no question as to what the business would be and even less of a question about the name.

Colleen was a neighbor and dear friend to the sisters’ family in Arlington, Virginia, where they grew up. “Colleen went to yard sales and estate sales before it was the thing to do,” Ms. Nau recounts. “She got us all hooked.”

“We started the business as a women’s clothing consignment shop. It was our Mom’s idea.” she said. “She told us that with a consignment shop you won’t have to buy inventory.  They’ll bring it to you.”

From the back of the antique store they eventually expanded into the entire three storefronts. They began adding their own collections, attending auctions, and searching thrift shops and estate sales for treasures for resale, operating “under Colleen’s influence,” Ms. Nau said.

“The next step was new gifts and new furniture,” going to New York on buying trips where they stayed with another of their Arlington neighbors who was in the New York fashion industry.

In recent years the adjacent storefronts have been rented to a variety of Leonardtown start-up businesses and in spring 2013 will be welcoming two new businesses to the current Colleen’s Dream current square footage.

Ms. Nau and Ms. Cullison still expect to be pulling more unseen collectibles and vintage ware from their own stock, similar to their personal stock infusion more than a dozen years before.

“It’s time to get it all cleared out.” Ms. Nau said. “We have met so many interesting people and have made some very good friends.   I want to let all of our customers know we have thoroughly enjoyed our 15 years meeting them and serving them. We will miss them.  But,” she adds, “it is now time to go.”

41665 Fenwick Street Leonardtown, MD

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