LAKEPORT — Shari”s Secret Garden, a fixture on Main Street in downtown Lakeport for more than 17 years, will be closing its doors at the end of October.
Owner Shari James opened the store in 1993 along Third Street, across the street from Museum Park, before moving into her current location across the street at 240 N. Main St. the next year.
“People are sad that we”re leaving,” James said.
James, 67, has run into some health problems that necessitated her retiring and closing her shop. “I have to have back surgery,” she said.
James said an anesthesiologist at Sutter Lakeside Hospital found she had pinched nerves in her back after she underwent two MRIs and other tests. James said she was in so much pain at the beginning of the year that the store wasn”t open for the first four months of 2011.
“I was really sick and I didn”t know what was wrong with me,” she said. “I had thousands of dollars of tests and everything said I was fine.”
She said the pain emanated through her entire body. “My whole body hurt,” she said. “My hands hurt. I couldn”t even pick up my water bottle.”
James couldn”t even do one of her favorite hobbies. “I love to bead. I was off four months and didn”t bead at all,” she said. “I had no idea pinched nerves could do that to you. I didn”t know there was something wrong with my back.”
James said she doesn”t have a definite idea of how the pinched nerves in her back developed but she assumed they derived from a car accident in 1990 in which she broke her pelvis in three places. “I”m sure that there was a lot of damage to my back at that time,” she said.
James said she plans to have back surgery sometime in the beginning of 2012, but the damage had already been done to her business with her being out of work for four months.
“For years and years, I supported this place with my own money and I don”t have that anymore and I can”t support it,” she said. “It”s a sad thing. I mean, I should”ve closed years ago but I didn”t want to.”
She said her business boomed for many years but had struggled even before the 2008 recession hit Lake County. Her store started off selling rubber stamps, gourmet food and jewelry, which she described as a “strange” combination.
After moving into the Main Street location in 1994, she began to expand her business into special gifts, scrapbooking materials and gift wrapping. She spent $17,000 to remodel the store.
“It”s been really fun being here,” she said. “I”ve loved being in my business. It”s been a labor of love for years and years.”
In mid-September, her son-in-law painted a sign along the store front windows advertising her retirement and thanking Lake County. She said she doesn”t have the money to advertise but the paint outside has been great free advertising. “It”s ugly but it does the job,” she said.
James said she isn”t panicking about her impending surgery, which hasn”t been scheduled. After being upset initially at the thought of closing her business, she is “starting to get happy” about retiring and being able to do what she wants.
She said she has been grateful to be in business for many years and had a lot of fun taking care of her customers.
“It”s been a blast,” she said.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
