This is the first of several articles over the next few weeks profiling Middletown businesses, including how they are faring in the aftermath of the devastating Valley Fire last September.
MIDDLETOWN >> At Organic Home Lifestyle, it’s not easy being green but it’s good, especially for the environment and economy.
The Middletown shop is small but eclectic, offering “green” items that include organic pillows and bedding, eco-friendly pet accessories, essential oils and elixirs, and environmentally friendly flooring, countertops and carpeting.
Organic Home Lifestyle, known on its website and social media as Forever Green, opened on Earth Day (April 22) 2015 but as co-owner Martha Sekander says, “Every day is Earth Day here.”
The store only sells items that have little or no negative impact on the planet and its ecosystems, with emphasis on goods that are recycled, reused and repurposed. Important factors that go in selecting items for the store are sustainable, organic, non-toxic, fair-wage and fair-trade.
“Every supplier we buy from are people trying to make a positive change on the Earth,” she says. “A lot of our items are from local crafts people.”
As a small, local merchant, Sekander says she understands the importance of area residents buying locally from “mom and pop” stores rather than chain stores or online.
“When you buy locally, the money goes back into the community,” she says. “It’s important for people in small communities to understand this.”
Among the store’s inventory are Full Circle Products that include kitchen items made with sustainable materials, such as glass instead of plastic; Floral Elixirs of Hidden Valley Lake that produces a line of flower essences that can be mixed in drinks, especially water, tea and lemonade; and Young Life that supplies handcrafted African art and other products made from wood, with the company’s profits going back into African development projects.
Others include pet leashes, collars and toys made from hemp and organic wool by Honest Pet Toys, a home-based business in Wisconsin; Dash Hemp that supplies handmade clothing made from hemp; and Synergy Organic Clothing that specializes in cotton tops.
If that’s not enough, there’s also Swahili art, crafts and art by local area artisans, jute yoga mats, organic cotton socks and sage smudge sticks.
It also carries environmentally-friendly carpeting made from 100 percent organic wool and cotton, flooring made from cork, reclaimed pine and clay; and carpeting made from untreated and undyed wool, hemp and cotton.
And for those really serious about saving trees, there’s the Luxe bidet that — Sekander says — eliminates the need for toilet paper. She says that TP is “not eco-friendly” while the bidet is “hygienic and healthy.”
Ida and Charles Ritchie of Clearlake visited the shop last weekend, looking for natural flooring and countertops for the house they currently have in escrow. The couple recently moved here from Butte, Montana.
“We were just out slumming and we saw the natural organic products sign,” Ida Ritchie says. “Everything in here is natural and beautiful.”
She and her husband say they love going to unique, local shops, which is what brought them to Middletown Saturday afternoon.
“Local shops are absolutely necessary to keep a community viable,” she says. “We love to meet the shop owners and employees.”
Sekander speaks frankly when she says the retail store has not had an easy first year, made doubly difficult when the Valley Fire swept through Middletown last September.
“Since the fire, we have seen a drop off in business,” Sekander says. “Most of our customers are tourists and they just stopped coming here.”
She adds that one of the area’s biggest tourist draws was the nearby Harbin Hot Springs resort which was lost to the fire. “That really hurt our tourist trade.”
Sekander also says there needs to be more of an effort to lure visitors from adjacent counties, especially Napa.
Sekander, who co-owns the shop with her daughter, says she lost her home in Cobb to the Valley Fire and is temporarily living in Hidden Valley Lake.
“We just want to do something that helps the planet and gives back to the community,” she says of their store.
Organic Home Lifestyle is at 21137 Calistoga Road, Middletown, (707) 987-6044. They are currently open seven days a week with European-style summer hours, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday.
