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WILKES-BARRE — Customers may mistakenly believe they have stumbled into someone’s home when they enter HomeWorks Gifts.
And that’s how it’s supposed to feel, owner Cathy Gourley said of the Irish and nature-inspired gifts shop at 277 George Ave., Wilkes-Barre.
Instead of display cases or racks, Gourley uses the walls, a mantle which she purchased specifically for the shop and a dining room table.
“It’s our tradition,” Gourley said of her Irish heritage. “Comfortable and cozy.”
From Inis perfume to Guinness brand products and Shamrock shortbread to HeatherGems, Gourley said she didn’t know “how much she liked to buy” until she started going to vendor fairs in New Jersey.
While she is the buyer, her sister, Maureen Magda, is the bargainer. Gourley was in the back of the shop looking at potential merchandise for the fall while Magda was in the front of the store when the Times Leader visited.
Magda and Gourley are the McCormick sisters who went to Coughlin High School, and that’s how they would be remembered in the city, Gourley said.
When Gourley and her husband, Dennis, decided to open the shop in the Parsons section of the city, they recruited Magda.
“I didn’t believe her at first,” Magda admits.
“But she should know me, I just do things,” Gourley added.
It wasn’t until the Gourley’s were in New Zealand and couldn’t make a vendor show that Magda finally believed them. Because she was asked to go in her sister’s place.
Since their official opening two weeks ago, Gourley said the business has been everything she’s bargained for and more. Gourley said she has to reorder stained-glass pieces, as all she has left is what’s hanging in the windows. But since the shop is also nature-based, Gourley wants to work with local stained-glass artists.
“It doesn’t have to be Irish,” she said.
On June 29, the shop hosted a LuLaRoe pop up shop outside on the lawn.
“We’ve never worked so hard,” Gourley confessed.
But it was something the women liked to see. It reminded them of their childhood, when George Avenue was a safe, vibrant, walking neighborhood.
“It’s already ethnically diverse,” Gourley said.
The idea for a shop, and potential destination spot, came from the Gourley’s past three years in Wilkes-Barre.
“We’re trying to re-gentrify the neighborhood,” Gourley said, noting the shop was the fifth property she and her husband bought and fixed up in the past few years. “Our belief is landlords need good tenants, and tenants need good landlords.”
And though the shop is predominantly Celtic, Gourley said Dennis bought a trunk several years ago which they use when they travel. There are some items from their latest trip to New Zealand in the trunk, and she hopes by August, she can have a trunk show.
“You never know what you’re going to find in the trunk,” Gourley said.
For more information, call the store at 570-371-3000 or visit their Facebook page at HomeWorks Gifts.
