SweetPea – a Unique Boutique
Rohnert Park, CA – It was one of those warm May or June nights back in 1987, when a small group of senior women decided they’d like to open up a store to sell their hand-knitted baby clothes and hand-strung bead necklaces they’ve busily accumulated. By October of that year they made a deal to rent a store on Southwest Boulevard, Rohnert Park’s original Main Street. The store’s founders volunteered to staff it and invited craftswomen and seamstresses to consign their goods here.
The harsh reality of the mercantile world, not quite ready as yet for genuine handicrafts as it is these days with outdoor crafts fairs, intruded, and their store only lasted two years.
Help from Codding
The rescue came when Hugh Codding, head of Codding Enterprises, made a deal with the City of Rohnert Park to sell his Hunter Drive headquarters so a center could be started here for the growing population of seniors. It was a natural to add the struggling Craft Shoppe to the new tenant list. It was also decided to change the name to SweetPea Gift Shoppe in honor of the city’s chosen floral symbol. Their new location opened to the public November 1990.
