When Sharone Einhorn and Honey Wolters decided to reopen their Hamptons shop Ruby Beets, after a five-year hiatus, some distinct tweaks went into the formula that, for eleven years, had made it such a venerable shopping destination for antiques with panache.  First, the location was moved from Bridgehampton to the village of Sag Harbor and instead of its previous 11 room-like settings, the new space, which once the village’s silent movie theater, now affords one big room, still overflowing with stylish imagination and inventory. “It doesn’t matter what size space you give us,” says Einhorn. “We will fill it!” Top of their reopening wish list, was the addition of new and customized pieces. “The world had change since we had been gone,” says Wolters. “ It had become a global marketplace and the way we lived had changed too. We had to reflect that. Besides, we also wanted to make things.” So while smaller in square footage, the now expanded range of Ruby Beet’s product and service — including an extensive website and design services — allows far greater ability to transform. It can start literally from the floor up, with Ruby Beets’ own handmade wool flat weave rugs in earth tones and graphic patterns (“We’d see these great vintage tribal rugs that cost a fortune and wanted to offer an affordable version,” says Einhorn) and can end with a graceful opaline Venetian chandelier.  And inbetween there is everything your room could desire, from a Lucite ballroom chair (“a perfect example of our new outlook of taking something traditional and iconic and giving it a fresh spin,” says Einhorn) to a sleek vintage Paul McCobb desk. “We both love to mix the old and the new,” says Wolters, “That’s why the new shop encompasses so many different eras and styles. But there is an unquantifiable Ruby Beets thing and we both know what that is.”

The pair became fast friends when they both lived in downtown New York.
Einhorn was busy working with fashion designer Willi Smith and drawing cartoons for magazines while Wolters was styling windows in downtown stores. “I liked the fantasy element to it,” says Wolters, “Plus you knew it was coming down in a few weeks and you could do something new all over again.” After Einhorn fell in love with a Queen Anne house in Bridgehampton, she began spending more and more time out of the city. When she launched Ruby Beets (so named by her after an illustration on a packet of seeds) full time residency followed. Before long, she had convinced Wolters to join her and the shop originated a fresh relaxed style.  Ruby Beets quickly became renowned for its original take on folk art and industrial pieces but also for Einhorn and Wolter’s uncanny ability to rejuvenate and repurpose old furniture, even with a coat of white paint. In Ruby Beet’s newest incarnation (articulated at the entrance via a giant resin ruby beet created by East End artist Matt Targon) the old has not been forgotten: winged loveseats from the 40’s, a handsome oak flat file from a local artist’s studio and a collection of earthy mid-century German studio pottery elegantly prove that point.  If anything, the new serves as a stylish extension of the past Einhorn and Wolters once solely championed. A George Sherlock sofa, traditional English upholstery always a cult favorite of designers, is unexpectedly paired with two-cast concrete and steel coffee tables. Large-scaled moth photos from celebrated contemporary photographer, Joseph Scheer, are reminiscent of vintage taxidermies that Ruby Beets used to sell. Einhorn and Wolters also love the expansive photographs of local seascapes by Hamptons-based Mary Ellen Bartley because they are the contemporary equivalent of the Victorian oil paintings they carried. The simple lines of a huge glass specimen case from 1910, filled with Royal Boch earthenware dishes now possesses a fresh and modern charm. Ruby Beets also creates its own furniture and upholstery, which is designed not to represent any distinct period, but instead offers timeless lines and appeal. “We try to make things, like our Parsons side table, that will mix with the old and the new,” says Wolters. “It’s almost a design statement by not being one.” Their sophisticated clientele is also attracted to the artisans Einhorn and Wolters search out and represent including glassblowers, a basket maker, a sculptor and a Pennsylvanian artist who hand-cuts rocks to make vessels and lamps.  “We’ve been friends for over 30 years and spent 12 of those years traveling in search of wonderful things,” says Einhorn. “We have an unspoken agreement that if only one of us likes something, we don’t buy it.  Unless, of course, the other one eventually gives in. It has to have that Ruby Beets thing.”
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