Inside the Holiday Transformation of the Marders Garden Shop

Many gift shops and local businesses transform during the holiday season, but for the past 20 years, the Marders Garden Shop has been one of the standouts.

For Kathleen Marder and her team, preparing the garden shop has been about more than just getting into the holiday spirit — instead, the team at Marders approaches it like a more intimate affair.

“We like to think of having visitors in the shop like having friends over to our home for the holidays,” said Marders retail operations manager Shea Keating. “We want people to come and let us host them, take in the sights and sounds, welcome in the festive season, and let us help find that perfect gift for everyone on your list.”

Over the past two decades, the shop has earned a reputation for not only doing an elaborate holiday-centric design theme, but also for carrying a wide variety of gifts, decor and more that are hard to find anywhere else.

“For many of our customers, we’ve been told that we are the place to bring house guests to kick off the holiday season,” Keating said.

When it comes to gifts, the store has plenty to choose from. In the cozy category, Marders will feature custom-made knit hats, made from 100 percent chunky wool yarn, with faux fur pom poms, in a wide range of colors, as well as a new selection of mohair throws, cashmere blend scarves, and wool socks from Ireland. The socks sold out so quickly last year that Marders brought in even more styles for this season.

An extensive selection of women’s gloves and mittens, at a competitive price point, were hot sellers last year as well, and Keating advises customers to buy them early, as they typically sell out.

For those looking for gifts in the wellness and self-care department, Marders is featuring an all-organic beauty line from the United Kingdom called Amly Botanicals. They offer unisex gift sets and a range of sizes in the best-selling face lotions and facial mists.

Other featured gifts include Le Chameau boots, a Marders staple. The high quality rubber boots are “perfect for the winter slush,” Keating said, and will keep feet dry all year round. New for the holiday season will be an ankle boot made by the company.

“We are so excited that they are bringing back our favorite style, a garden shoe that we will have in the shop this coming spring 2023,” Keating added.

A new line of handbags made from recycled paper, in metallic hues, will be new this season, as well as a new line of chocolate bars. Proceeds from the sale of the chocolate bars goes to support Girls Inc., a national nonprofit based in New York that works to “inspire girls to be strong, smart and bold.”

The garden store will also feature a wide selection of its highly sought-after Christmas tree ornaments, which range from classic to eclectic, with many that are a nod to celebrities and other pop culture icons and moments. Finding out what new arrivals are in the store each year is a tradition for many longtime shoppers. During the first year of the COVID crisis, a sparkly roll of toilet paper was a hot seller.

Decorating the store and transforming it into a holiday wonderland with a specific Marders aesthetic is an effort that takes months of planning, and plenty of work from several employees, but it is by and large the brainchild of owner Kathleen Marder.

“Kathleen is the driving force behind the design, layout and featured merchandise for the holiday season,” Keating said. “We always like to try and outdo ourselves year after year or tweak things we know work really well.”

This year, the store will feature its light balls on the ceiling, with a new addition or two to add to the view above, Keating added.

While the specific design elements and merchandise may vary from year to year, it’s no surprise that the aesthetic and unifying theme is nature based, considering that Marders has been one of the most successful full-service landscaping and design companies in the area for decades.

“Inspiration first and foremost comes from the natural world,” Keating said. “All products featured have been vetted for environmental attributes. We aim to support like-minded brands, committed to organics, quality and a high standard of design.”

Themes of inclusivity, family, quality time in the outdoors and organic gardening also inform everything that happens in the garden shop.

The shop has a decidedly global theme as well. The merchandise is sourced from all over the world, and “inspiration can strike at any time and often does,” Keating added.

“We have some new antiques in the shop from a recent trip, and terracotta garden ornaments and a line of handmade vases that were imported from abroad,” she said. “We also feature locally sourced items such as our own Mary Woltz’s honey from the hives on Marders property at Snake Hollow Road.

For pet lovers, Marders also offers “Hamptons Hounds” dog treats, made by two local teenagers who donate a percentage of their profits to supporting childhood cancer research.

For those looking to do a little more than just shop and browse, Marders has a robust schedule of events during the season that start on November 5 and run through December 11.

Holiday wreath workshops will be held on November 20, December 4 and December 11, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on all three days. The cost is $125 per adult and $85 for children ages 10 to 12 (younger children are not permitted). The cost covers all tools except for clippers, which guests must bring. The class fills at 12 participants.

This year, Marders will feature the Consonance Music Ensemble, a performing group out of New York that includes graduates of the Juilliard Music Conservatory, the Curtis Musical School, and the Manhattan School of Music. They will play on the balcony on November 12 and 26. The Deacon Brown and the Genesis Gospel Choir will perform on December 3, and the Steve Shaughnessy Trio will perform on November 25, 26 and 27.

The “Birds of Prey” from Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center will be at the garden shop as well, on November 25 and 27 and December 3 and 10.