Concept shop Salter House, located in the heart of Brooklyn Heights, has quickly become an indie, bourgeois version of Crabtree & Evelyn. Its sustainable soap bars, Liberty print florals, organic children’s toys and responsibly sourced coffee drinks have put a pastoral fingerprint on interiors in its immediate neighborhood and further afoot — particularly during the pandemic when one could glean unforeseen joy from a new soap dish or trivet.
But more than that, Salter House has become something of a brand unto its own — despite the fact that it largely sells brands of other names. Its rack of English nightgowns are ransacked each Saturday afternoon by women seeking a flotsam day dress alternative. Its minimal, Shaker-type outlook on countryside interiors has outlasted the #cottagecore social media trend’s final polyester chiffon dredges. And sales from its e-commerce site are regularly shipped around the country.
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Founders Sandeep and Carson Salter took this to mean it was time to branch out with more wares bearing their own name, with the intent to create a full-scale lifestyle brand. So today comes the first wave of that initiative: a first run of Salter House brand organic cotton nightgowns.
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“COVID-19 totally led us to reconceptualize the business. After the pandemic, it gave us a reason to prioritize and what we wanted was to start making our own things,” Sandeep said.
Six designs ranging from $70 to $88 behold symbolism personal to Sandeep — who hand-illustrated embroidery templates that adorn each style.
The artist, merchant and curator has held a lifelong obsession with nightgowns and she installed a rack of billowy gowns in Salter House’s window on a whim when the store opened in 2018. To her surprise, they remain bestsellers today.
“I was really calling upon very specific nightgowns from my past when I was a little girl and teenager. My favorite ones have fallen apart so I tried to re-create them from memory,” she said of her new line.
Each of the designs are “storybook-inspired,” according to Sandeep. “The Wendy nightdress has a Peter Pan collar, each style is very specific. I’m obsessed with children’s literature and I embroidered a couple from one book I read to my little girls. The Chore nightdress is similar to the antique one I do my chores in at home. My favorite is the Lamb nightdress, it has little lambs embroidered on it in a French provincial cut,” she said.
Miniature versions for children will soon be on the way and Sandeep says she plans to wholesale the line to other stores in the coming months. The nightdresses follow the Salter’s first stab at in-house designs launched last year like a Liberty print billowy dress and blouse.
“We are trying to produce as much as we can now. The ultimate goal for us is to be producing all of our own things. We are an independent business and started this with nothing, we have sort of grown and been able to budget to make things,” said Sandeep.
She is currently working with dressmakers in the Garment District to expand Salter House’s fashion line, and plans to launch a corset design, pants and studio coat by the end of this year. While the nightdresses are produced overseas, Salter House’s more complicated clothing designs will be entirely made in New York by female artisans — to be priced from $200 to $500.
Also on deck are a range of bathrobes and rugs made in collaboration with Rabbit Goody of Thistle Hill Weavers, a mill based in upstate New York. They are also working on candles and recently launched an expanded line of table and bath linens handmade in Lithuania.
While Salter House may appear lacquered in prim, a cast of local artist sales associates playing heavy metal often offset that sweetness — keeping the whole enterprise fresh. The store is also connected to the Salters’ art gallery, Picture Room, which deals in emerging artists and works on paper.
For Sandeep, her company’s unique outlook stems from her and Carson’s, “mishmash of cultures. I grew up in England and I’m Indian, and my husband is from Georgia. We lead this domestic life and that’s come together to create Salter House. I think we have a very practical approach to aesthetics but there is a sense of traditionalism. We are all just a bunch of art kids playing ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”