Lourdes Romo had a simple goal when she opened her new gift shop in Point Reyes Station: to bring a little bit of Mexico to anyone who walks through the door.
“I wanted to share the richness and colors of our beautiful culture,” said Ms. Romo, who opened in the space next to the West Marin Pharmacy a week before Christmas.
It’s called Casa y Corazón, or Home and Heart. “I came up with that name because you can find functional things for your casa, and you can also find things that are dear to your heart,” she said.
Point Reyes has several carefully curated gift shops that reflect their owners’ unique aesthetic, but Ms. Romo’s is the first in town whose merchandise comes exclusively from Mexico. She is proud to be making a modest but important piece of mercantile history in Point Reyes Station.
“It feels great,” she said. “This town was lacking retail diversity. There are beautiful places with beautiful things, but there are very few that make you feel, ‘My gosh, my culture is important.’”
The shop marks a new direction for Ms. Romo, who has served as the executive director of the Papermill Creek Children’s Corner for the last decade, a role she will continue even as she manages her new shop.
Many of the items on the shelves of Casa y Corazón are both practical and beautiful. All of them are handmade, and most have a story that ties them to artisans or regions of Mexico, including Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Michoacán and Chiapas.
Most of all, there are items from Jalisco, including many from Jalostotitlán—affectionately known as Jalos—the agricultural hometown of many West Marin Latinos, including Ms. Romo. The region is known for its rich traditions of handicrafts and folk art, including pottery, beaded jewelry and embroidery, all of which are on ample display at Casa y Corazón.
The items reflect various regional and Indigenous traditions, and the place is bursting with color. Even the sombreros are decorated in bright hues.
Some of the items are handcrafted by Ms. Romo’s friends, neighbors and family members in Mexico, while others were curated from a network of artisans Ms. Romo has cultivated online and with the help of a nephew who works for Jalisco’s tourism bureau.
Two Mexican icons are featured on various items: La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Mexican painter Frida Khalo, who enjoys near-saintly status of her own. You can find her visage on earrings, coasters and key chains.
The business appears to be off to a good start, with a steady stream of customers, including locals and tourists, Latinos and Anglos.
“I do get a lot of compliments from my Mexican community, from the Latino community,” Ms. Romo said. “When they come in, they tell me they feel like they’re in their hometown because they see things that remind them of when they were growing up.”
On a recent visit, Lilliam Alfaro, a Bolinas resident with family roots in Guatemala, scooped up a half-dozen items, including a couple of dresses, several mugs and huarache sandals. As Mexican folk music played softly in the background, she made a thorough inspection of nearly everything in the store, which she was delighted to discover.
“I do think cultural representation is important, and it does change the flavor or the feeling of entering a place,” Ms. Alfaro said. “It’s nice to see people from other cultures walk in and appreciate things that resonate with me. It creates community bonding, and that’s a nice feeling.”
The store is not Ms. Romo’s first foray into the retail world. Before embarking on her career at the preschool, she spent a decade working for Susan Hayes, a Point Reyes designer whose shop produced handwoven fashions crafted from fabrics spun by local weavers, some of them working on looms in the back of the shop.
Ms. Romo started as a salesperson and later became production manager.
“She became a crucial part of the business within just a few years,” Ms. Hayes said. “She processed all our orders, dealt with all of our vendors for supplies and supervised my staff. She worked in every aspect of the business.”
Eventually, Ms. Romo developed an interest in early childhood education and decided to move on. She brought her management skills to Papermill Creek, Ms. Hayes said, and she will bring her eye for detail and refined aesthetic to her new venture.
“Lourdes has pretty much excelled at everything she’s attempted,” Ms. Hayes said.
Ms. Romo, who is 49, came to Point Reyes with her family when she was 10 years old. Her father took a job at the Mendoza Dairy, and she enrolled at West Marin School. She has deeply fond memories of growing up in the seashore, where she joined many kids who spent afternoons playing baseball in the pastures at the Nunes and McClure ranches.
There weren’t any Mexican-owned shops in town at the time, and she never imagined that she’d one day open one of her own. “I remember having to drive over the hill to have access to the very few Mexican gift shops at the time,” she said. “My parents felt so welcomed and happy to be able to speak in Spanish and find items that they grew up with.”
That’s the very feeling she’s hoping to create in her own shop, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. “It’s my baby,” she said.