New Women’s Boutique Comes To Westhampton Beach Main Street

A new women’s clothing and accessories store will open on Main Street in Westhampton Beach just in time for Mother’s Day.

Palmer & Purchase, a boutique with two locations in Westchester County, is expanding to the East End on May 3, opening at 130 Main Street, formerly the site of Books & Books. The boutique will sell handbags, jewelry, dresses, hand-painted gifts, reusable water bottles, beachwear and beach accessories, along with its own cashmere line.

The items will range in price, as some will be designer brands while others will be more affordable. Local artist Katy Garry also will have her work on display throughout the store that customers can purchase.

“We’re excited to be open before Mother’s Day and graduations and things like that coming up for clothes and gifts—we’re thrilled,” said Nadine Rote, the store’s operations manager.

The local connection stems from Ms. Rote, a longtime Westhampton Beach resident who splits her time between the Hamptons and Westchester.

She said she believes Westhampton Beach is the right community for what she and store owner Abbie Durkin envisioned. Not only would local consumers benefit from the store’s “treasures,” as she called the products, but the village would also benefit by having a new business to attract more revenue, she said.

She said people assume that more sophisticated customers who spend more money are found farther east than Westhampton Beach—but she disagrees, having been in the village for half her life. “I think that the community is great,” she said. “I think there is a very sophisticated consumer who is smart.”

“And Westhampton, the way the downtown is laid out, it’s very conducive to walking when you’re out here,” she went on to say. “People walk into town a lot, they walk around a lot, and I like that it’s a smaller community in that regard.”

Ms. Durkin opened the first Palmer & Purchase store, originally called Clutch, in 2009 in Larchmont, a village along the Long Island Sound. But when the second store opened in Rye a few years later, they renamed the business after the streets that the stores were situated on—Palmer Avenue in Larchmont and Purchase Street in Rye.

They won’t be changing the name to Palmer & Purchase & Main—but Ms. Rote joked that they searched for a street in Westhampton Beach that began with a “P.”

“Not only am I thrilled to have been a part of the process for this new store, but I so look forward to being a loyal patron!” Ashley Farrell, the Corcoran real estate agent for this property, said in an email. “Main Street will only benefit from more stores and restaurants, and this is the first step.”

As of right now, Palmer & Purchase will be open through the fall, but management hopes to operate year-round. Being a village resident, Ms. Rote understands the difficulties of sustaining a small business during the off-season. She said she has been speaking to several local year-round business owners about how they overcome the slower months.

“The stores that have been here a long time that have done well, they’re smart about always sort of changing what works and listening to their customers, which is what we’ve done and that’s how we’ve been able to be successful,” Ms. Rote said.