BREAKING NEWS: Changes at Town Home

For those of you who’ve gasped at the scary Available For Lease sign up in the window where Dana Bank’s lovely Town Home once lived, don’t worry: She’ll be back. In fact, she’ll be back soon, and nearby. Bank plans to reopen in mid-September in a smaller space at 1616 Walnut Street (yes, that’s attached to Joan Shepp), with a few tweaks to her inventory — tweaks, apparently, that have been a long time coming.

Bank says that while her business has been doing fine during the economic downturn, there were certainly some areas where she increasingly couldn’t compete with bigger, national stores when it came to some of the items in her boutique (like when, say, Bloomie’s would put the same giant glass Simon Pearce vases she carried on sale for 30 percent off). What customers were buying, however, was her jewelry, and so when Bank’s lease was up on the 19th Street space, she decided she should find a place that was down on square footage, and up on exposure.  

And it’s true, over the past year or two, Bank has developed a really lovely selection of jewelry lines that have been extremely successful at the store — wherever she goes, people even want to buy stuff off of her. And, that’s what the new petite Walnut Street Town Home will focus on. Bank will still have a “best of the best selection,” as she says, of the things many of her customers come to her for — hostess gifts like Alora Ambiance diffusers, luxe candles and chocolates, plus adorable onesies and a few other items for Philly tots. But what she’ll have even more of is customized initial jewelry from Heather Moore, delicate pieces from Kasey K., and such a selection of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets from Me&Ro that it will almost become a boutique-within-a-boutique. She’ll be bringing in some new lines as well, as she visits jewelry shows in the weeks before she opens.

“You gotta change with the times,” says Bank. “You can’t stay still, or you’ll get burnt!” Stay tuned for a full report once Town Home reopens — and keep your eyes peeled out on the Main Line. Bank plans to unveil a jewelry case housing some of her favorite pieces inside Haverford Square’s Jai Yoga, to save some of her suburban clients the hike down 76 whenever they’re craving a new piece.