Stylish living in a rural town
Good chocolate, fresh fish and designer paint
Kelvin Browne, National Post Published: Saturday, February 23, 2008
Last weekend, I drove into Erin, a small town close to where I have a house in the country. It's about an hour northwest of Toronto. I needed a few things for dinner, as well as a can of paint. I picked up fresh salmon, steak shipped from Alberta, nice wine from California, fresh-baked goods with all sorts of healthy ingredients, high-quality prepared foods including real chicken soup and wonderful cheeses.
Walking from the bakery to the paint store, it suddenly struck me: The paint I wanted was Farrow & Ball, and there's a store selling it on the main street of Erin. How did this happen? And what about everything else I purchased? It wasn't exactly hick. As I walked back to my car, I noticed a store with excellent chocolates made on-site, furniture stores with trendy items recently featured in design magazines, an antique store; we even have a Thai restaurant now.
Years ago, I didn't take it for granted I could find much that I wanted in Erin. If I was having guests out for dinner, I'd likely bring most of the ingredients from the city. Fresh fish, no way. Fresh vegetables and fruit? Even in summer it used to take a search to find much more than carrots in plastic bags and apples from New Zealand. Buy a sweater or have dinner? I don't think so unless you wanted to recreate a 1960s experience.
I'm sure there's a demographic explanation for much of what has happened. More people with more money move into the neighbourhood and stores respond to their needs. However, the area around Erin has always had lots of people who could afford good things and it didn't seem to have much impact until recently.
Of course, people in general have become more sophisticated and health aware. Ageing Boomers want to live well and organically. You can't pick up a magazine or watch television without getting a lecture about how to cook, select wine, match colours or live to be 100. This kind of exposure to Lifestyle 101 explains much of what you see in the city. In the country, there's always been a bit of a disconnect. What works in town doesn't always translate here. And you don't want it to, either, because you come to the country for the country, not to live like you do in the city with a different backdrop.
The miracle is living well as you can in the city and bringing it to a rural place without destroying the charm, or reality, of the local situation. This is what's happened in Erin. Shopping is on the main street. It's quite real -- as in there are parking lots and strip malls and friends can look like they might have just mucked out a horse stall -- but it now offers a sophisticated world of choice.
This isn't main street in the Hamptons or Nantucket or even Port Carling. It's not like every high-end brand is on the main street. This is a good thing. It's not Godiva chocolate but, if you know chocolate as a friend of mine does, what's sold there is as good. If you know greens, the hydroponic greens available are sublime.
A fresh fish store appeared a couple of years ago on the main street. I worried it wouldn't survive. Everyone
seems to be meat eaters in the country. For a while, we bought fish every weekend assuming we could single-handedly keep the store open. As it turns out, the store didn't need us. The quality of the fish, and the change in the local sensibility that we should be eating more fish, made it a success. Who needs the St. Lawrence Market?
My favourite store is What's Cookin', owned by the irrepressible Jo Fillerty. She was the original outpost of good living on main street. Fresh this, homemade that, great kitchen gadgets and catering. "Here, taste this," she says each time you visit. No wonder she's a success.
The secret of main street Erin is it's a collection of entrepreneurs who love what they do, know what's good and want to share it. They live here because they love the country, too, but don't want to leave behind all the other good things they care about to be here. They prove we can have it all and don't have to go to the city. It's about being beyond brand and focused on quality.
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