By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—The end of an era in Brandon: Blue Moon Boutique on Center Street will be closing this summer so that owner Allie Walter can devote her energies to a new full-time position at Safer Society, also in Brandon.
Blue Moon was opened by Walter’s mother, Ellen, in Bristol back in 1993, specializing in unique gifts and artisanal women’s clothing. The boutique moved to Middlebury, then to Brandon, where in 2015 it found a home in one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in town: 31 Center Street. It’s a suitably quirky building for a boutique that focused on quirky gifts and eclectic, handmade clothing.
Ellen and Allie Walter cultivated a loyal clientele not only with their shrewd selection of goods but also with their sociability and willingness to chat with everyone who came in the store.
“I love being in Brandon,” said Allie. “I loved being at the store and seeing everyone. When I bought merchandise, a lot of times I had a specific customer in mind. That’s the part I’m going to miss the most.”
Allie took over Blue Moon from her mother in 2021 and business has been great.
“I’m not closing because business is bad,” she said. “Things have actually been really good. The community has kept me going. But I grew up with the store and it’s time to try something new.”
Allie’s “something new” is a full-time position as coordinator of continuing education for the Safer Society Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to ending domestic violence and abuse.
“I’ve been working part-time for Safer Society since last year,” she said. “I couldn’t do both the store and this part-time work.” She felt she had to make a choice.
“I think about the store all the time,” she added. “I wouldn’t be able to just hire a manager. I’d still be over there all the time. It’s an extension of me. I had to make a clean break. And I wanted to move on while things were still good. But retail is tough. When we started, online wasn’t a thing.”
“We were both in tears,” said Allie’s mother, Ellen. “It’s hard [to close the shop] for sure. Having your own shop is a unique way to make a living. It’s an expression of ourselves.”
ALLIE WALTER AT the counter of her boutique, Blue Moon, which will be closing this summer as Walter takes a new position with a nonprofit in Brandon.
The Walters will put the building up for sale. Though it hasn’t officially hit the market yet, Allie said they’ve had inquiries about it over the years. It’s one of more prominent buildings in downtown Brandon, a remnant of Brandon’s industrial past, when the town was known for iron and scales. In fact, 31 Center Street is the last remaining building of the Howe Scales operation that dominated Center Street in the 1850s and 60s.
But for many Brandonites of a certain age, 31 Center Street will forever be remembered as LaDuke’s, where staff from the Brandon Training School would grab famously tasty burgers before the loggers came down off the mountains and got rowdy at night. Folks who were in Brandon at the time love to say that the big plate-glass window up front had so many drunken men thrown through it that the owner eventually just put up plywood.
Even without a business, Allie will continue her work on the Downtown Brandon Alliance, and will wind the store down between now and when she begins her new job at Safer Society in July. Though the merchandise may end up being discounted, the memories will remain priceless.
