Building the Valley: Vesta Vintage and Handcrafted Goods coming to Tarentum

Brackenridge resident Denise Sloan vividly recalls childhood walks with her father through the booming Tarentum business district.

“He worked at DiGirolomo’s and we would walk to Berkey’s, where he would chat with everyone,” she said. “The last stop was always Harrison’s on Corbet Street.”

Sloan, a Highlands High School grad, is seeing her life come full circle.

Her first business venture, Vesta Vintage and Handcrafted Goods, is scheduled to open June 9 inside the former Harrison’s men’s shop that she was so fond of as a child.

The original cash register from the haberdashery sits in the store’s front window.

“I want to be part of the revitalization,” said Sloan, who is taking a leap into the business world after working in the health care and management industry for several years. Currently, she drives for a school bus company.

Her store at 408 Corbet St. will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

“I always talked about opening a store, but I didn’t quite know what kind,” she said. “I figure if there are a few specialty shops in town, it makes it a destination.”

After attending Tarentum Night Markets last summer with her homemade sugar scrubs and crocheted potholders, Sloan was buoyed by the success and started to eye vacant storefronts.

Once she made the decision to open her antique décor store, Sloan bought out the inventory of a shuttered business and filled her room with its hand-crafted Amish furniture, milk glass, handmade pillows and wicker baskets of all shapes and sizes.

In her glass display cases are a hand-painted carpenter saw, aged political buttons, license plates and wooden signs with clever sayings, such as “It’s not drinking alone if your cat is home.”

The walls are lined with shelves of Tupperware, Pyrex and ceramics. A wooden table and chairs — the first pieces of furniture Sloan purchased as a young adult — take center stage in the showroom.

Portions of the store will feature goods from a variety of vendors who rent space from Sloan. One vendor will be Cedar and Slate, a custom rustic home décor business from Harrison. Additional space will be filled with keen-eyed picks made by Sloan at yard sales, Goodwill and salvage shops.

“I can usually spot something and know if people will like it,” she said.

Sloan sometimes transforms items into something else that might catch a customer’s eye. She bedazzled an old bowling ball with gems and repurposed it into a sparkly garden decoration.

It’s a fitting knack for someone who named her store for Vesta, a guru of Hearth and Home.

“I liked that spin on a domestic Goddess,” she said.