Chandler Shop owner retires after 25 years
Main Street is losing one of its veterans this weekend. After 25 years of keeping The Chandler Shop stocked with the latest in candles, stuffed animals and collectibles, owner Monique Owen is retiring.
But not before taking care of every last thing.
Unwilling to leave downtown with a vacant storefront, Owen recruited the owners of the popular Blooming Iris gift shop in downtown Tilton to buy her store. That pair, Steve Russell and Michael Gagne, visited Concord this week and introduced themselves to their Main Street neighbors. On Monday, they’ll open The Chandler Shop as their own.
Owen will be by to help Russell and Gagne get settled, and if they ask her to help out at Christmas, she won’t say no. “I hope everyone will support the new owners like they supported me,” she said.
Owen, who is keeping her age a secret, bought The Chandler Shop on March 7, 1983, when it sat across the street from its current location, in what is now the Citizens Bank building. Owen and her husband, Lee, had met in Colebrook and moved to Concord years earlier. While Lee Owen supported the family working as an accountant at Anderson & Cloues in Concord, Monique Owen stayed home and raised their four children.
In 1983, the couple’s oldest child was in college and the youngest was in elementary school. Monique Owen had enjoyed working in retail at her parents’ grocery store in her native Canada and liked the idea of working with customers again. When The Chandler Shop, named for a candle line sold there, came up for sale, the couple bought it.
Six months later, Citizens Bank bought the building, and the store moved across the street.
