Treasures celebrates 15 years
Since May 1993, one of Hanover’s best-known independent retailers has offered distinctive gifts and special service to its customers. Treasures, best known for Crabtree & Evelyn products, its signature white gift wrapping and friendly customer service, will celebrate its 15th anniversary this spring.
Ever since its opening, the gift store has adapted to customers’ changing interests and tastes. Those customers will get a chance to celebrate the anniversary with 15 percent off all toiletries, including Crabtree & Evelyn, Caswell-Massey and Thymes, throughout the month of April.
“We’ve evolved with the times,” said Treasures owner Jill Rohrbaugh. “When our customers ask for a product we will source it. We watch the trends, we’re always bringing in products from new vendors. I like to shop, it’s a fun job.” Treasures receives new items on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, Rohrbaugh added.
Fine toiletries were so well received in Hanover, Rohrbaugh said, Treasures added a men’s line from Caswell-Massey, America’s oldest chemists and perfumers, and bath and body products from Thymes. This spring Treasures will add fragrances from French perfumer Fragonard, which have only recently become available in the United States.
Treasures’ popular lines of toiletries make up just a portion of the gifts in the store. The shop is known for wedding and anniversary gifts, baby keepsakes and the beautiful art glass that can be seen through the windows. Shoppers can also find Crabtree & Evelyn sleepwear, jewelry, stationery, porcelain lithophane nightlights, and bar and table wares. During the holidays, Treasures is renowned for its Legends of Christmas ornaments, like the Christmas pickle, Santa’s Cabin and the Friendship Snowflake.
“We’re always looking for something new and different,” Rohrbaugh said, adding that customers frequently ask where she gets her inventory.
“We go to markets – New York, Philadelphia,” she said. “We buy things from here, there and everywhere, which enables the shop to have such fascinating items. Where else in Hanover are you going to find bulldog bookends, a golfing pig and garden gnomes all under one roof?”
That roof tops Hanover’s landmark flatiron building at York and Railroad streets. The second floor houses Rohrbaugh’s office for her firm, Architecture Workshop Inc. She relies on store manager Jenna Smith to oversee day-to-day operations at Treasures.
So how does an architect come to open a gift shop?
“It was a wonderful use for such a jewel of a building. It was a way to preserve the building,” she said.
The structure has stood on the site since the late 18th century. Early deeds include this point as a part of the land grant from the King of England to Lord Calvert. Deed research shows that the owners at that time paid a “glass tax,” a property tax of the era based on the number of panes of glass in the building. The building served as a market and was last renovated in the 1830s as a butcher shop. The three-story turret and curved glass entry was added during that renovation.
During part of the last century, the building was home to Wildasin’s meat market. When Rohrbaugh acquired the property she found flowered wallpaper on the walls, a dirt floor in the basement and a track in the ceiling used to convey slabs of meat from the delivery trucks to the butcher block. Following a nearly two-year historic renovation, Treasures opened with a bright, well-appointed interior, which has won local acclaim.
Treasures is located at 1 York St., Hanover. Store hours are Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
