LOVINGSTON — A new Lovingston store is selling local grass-fed beef and lamb among other healthy options, as well as organic ice cream by the scoop.
Adrienne Young-Ramsey, owner of Home Remedies Mercantile and Exchange at 121 Main St., said about 100 people visited the store on its soft opening March 17.
“It’s just so exciting to see what we’re trying to offer to the community are products that represent ideas whose time has returned,” Young-Ramsey said. “Because we are going back to the way things used to be when cows ate what they were born to eat, which is grass.”
The store sells organic dairy products, local meat, antiques and other items, Young-Ramsey said. The store’s most popular product at the soft opening, she said, was organic heirloom seeds from Mineral-based cooperative Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.
Young-Ramsey plans to partner with some Nelson County farms to offer other local products, including produce and herbs.
In addition, she said she has plans to build a kitchen so the store can offer prepared foods. She also wants the store to eventually become a community meeting space.
“We are going to have a place to exchange; that’s where the name comes from,” Young-Ramsey said. “It’s a not just a place to buy products, but a place to exchange wisdom, good vibrations and community spirit.”
Young-Ramsey and her husband, Luke Ramsey, are beef and lamb producers who have a 43-acre farm in Wingina where they grass-feed their animals.
The couple has been renovating the building since January, said Ramsey, owner of Ramsey Restoration.
“That was one of the things we needed; a place to sell our meat,” Ramsey said. “My wife and I wanted to sell the type of food we like.”
The building dates to 1900, according to the Nelson County GIS website. Young-Ramsey said the building was originally a firehouse.
“Our goal is to refurbish it so it looks like a country farmhouse with lots of open space, white plaster, wooden beams — really clean and airy and pure,” Young-Ramsey said.
The previous owner of the building is Nelson resident Claudia Mallory Brush. Brush said she ran Claudia’s Florist & Gifts until 2015. Her late father, Mallory Hancock, purchased the property in 1978 and her parents ran a firehouse-themed restaurant, she said.
Brush said it was important to her to sell the property to family- and community-oriented people.
What mattered to Brush, she said, was that “someone is going to love it and appreciate it. It’s a building where my father and I had 25 years of wonderfulness.”
Nelson Supervisor Jesse Rutherford said he is excited about the new store.
“I think it’s important that we encourage our local farmers to sell their stuff,” Rutherford said. “It’s important we support our neighbors and their livelihood. Nelson County is a big deal, and us supporting our community is a step in the right direction.”
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