Mothers and daughters have different ways of bonding. For some, it’s shopping. For others, it’s watching a cheesy rom-com together. But for mother Karen McDonald and daughter Kaitlin Teel, it’s running their own antique and home goods store, Sparrow Lane.
For a while, the thought of getting into business together was little more than a pipe dream for the mother-daughter duo. “My mom and I are really close, so starting a business had always been something we talked about,” Teel says. “We — and by extension, our spouses — had talked about opening a gift shop for as long as I can remember, but we’d put it on the backburner.” Neither mother nor daughter seriously considered the idea until they saw a storefront up for sale in Downtown Bryan, Teel explains.
The historic building on Bryan’s Main Street, had once been home to popular Mexican restaurant Los Nortenos, but it had been sitting empty since the restaurant’s closing in 2012. “The building is what sold us on the whole idea,” Teel says. “We saw the quaint little storefront, and we knew that if we were going to start a business, this is where we had to do it.” With green, brick walls dotted with historic markers, the building had an obvious history that appealed to Teel and her mother. “The old mixed with the new has always been our style, and this building had the potential to fit that perfectly,” Teel explains.
The brick building, now stripped of its green paint, still brings a different vibe to the downtown. Customers walking through its powder-blue doors will find a spacious room filled with antique furniture, chandeliers hanging overhead, and home goods scattered about. In the back, patrons can shop women and children’s clothing, or they can order their own custom items to be printed or embroidered. “We live and work in a community where people want to support local businesses, especially those in Downtown Bryan,” Teel says. “People are constantly coming to shop and hang out, and it creates a fun environment.”
These varied offerings have allowed Sparrow Lane to blossom into a thriving family business, Teel says. “The whole family is involved in their own little ways; everyone pitches in when they can,” Teel continues. “My mom’s the one that’s really good at the business side of things. She gets our ducks in a row, and I pick our products.” Teel’s sister, who owns a
real-estate brokerage, was heavily involved in the initial construction of Sparrow Lane and continues to assist in the continued development and design of the store. “My aunt, who has a chateau in France and is heavily intertwined with the European antiquing world, was the one that got us in contact with an antique buyer in Italy,” Teel says.
This last part, especially, was and is crucial to the success of the store while overseas travel remains limited, Teel says. “Ideally, we would have been taking regular trips to Europe ourselves to buy our own antiques, but obviously, that didn’t happen,” Teel says. “Instead, the buyer will FaceTime us or send pictures, and we decide on the items we want from there. We handpick and import all of our furniture from Europe, primarily from France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain — the furniture is my favorite part.”
Teel and her mother have spent many long days and late nights overcoming the time difference to work with their Italian buyer. “It’s taken more time than I originally thought, but it’s brought my mom and I even closer together.”
