How 3 Beloved Dallas Stores Became Connected This Year

These three shops are trading spaces and swapping lines.

Return to Form

After a nearly five-year stint at Highland Park Village, Kerri Davis and Margretta Wikert’s stationery and gift shop, Ellis Hill, is going back to where it all began: West Lovers Lane. But their new location is double what they started with—just look for the bright, blue doors and the black-and-white awning.

Ellis Hill’s new setup is stocked with stationery, leather goods, bedding, and pretty pillows ready for monogramming, which can now be done courtesy of retail partner The Loveliest. “It’ll be so nice to have a local embroiderer with such a great aesthetic,” Wikert says.

The duo was searching for a space with more room, but they were especially thrilled to find it on West Lovers Lane. “We love this street, and a lot of our clientele live nearby,” Wikert says. Proximity to Mexican restaurant José didn’t hurt the appeal, either. “We are dangerously close to margaritas,” she adds.

Home Sweet Home

A charming cottage was the dream when Paula Minnis first decided to move artisan accessories line, GAIA Empowered Women, out of her home in 2014—but such spaces can be hard to find. But everything aligned this year, when the women behind The Loveliest contacted Minnis about swapping her Cedar Springs studio for their historic carriage house in Uptown.

“It was one of those meant-to-be things,” says Minnis. The new space gives GAIA a retail presence in Dallas (though accessories have long been stocked at Cabana, Wisteria, Madison, and The Gypsy Wagon). Global-inspired pillows, jewelry, and textiles—all handmade by Dallas refugees—will be available online and during limited hours this spring.

Minnis also plans to use the updated kitchen. “We’ll host events with food from around the world prepared by the artisans and really give the public an opportunity to meet the women and learn more about them,”she says.

Forwarding Address

Owners and sisters Britni Wood and Kelsey Sheets and mother, Joni Wood, are forwarding their linens, home accessories, and monogramming machines to GAIA’s former studio—it’ll function as a design office and showroom, which will be open to the public.

The move means more space to produce their own line—table linens, pillows, and baby accessories—but it also gives the team freedom to travel. The women plan on bringing their perfectly pressed linens to new cities with trunk shows and mini shop-in-shops across the country.

But locals won’t have to mourn The Loveliest retail experience. Dallas is getting its own Loveliest spot at Ellis Hill’s new boutique on West Lovers Lane. “They have such beautiful monograms and great style,” says Ellis Hill co-owner Margretta Wikert. “They reached out to us, and we were so pumped.”