A
Myriad of Music Boxes
Toys
for "Children" of All Ages
All
About the 1800s ... "our" era
Dolls
Large, Small,
Beautiful & Frightful
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Our former regional toursim director visited Falcon Rest's Victorian
Gift Shop shortly after we moved into its new 2,500 sq.ft. building in
1999.
Her reaction: "This shop is a tourist attraction in
itself." In keeping with Falcon Rest's theme as
"the Victorian mansion where history is fun," the unique array of
1800's merchandise invites visitors to play, laugh and interact.
The fellows tell us it's a gift shop even a man can love!
The current shop has come a long way from our
first one, located in the mansion's 300-sq.-ft. smokehouse. The
idea of a museum gift shop isn't all that unique, but we'd been so
focused on getting the Falcon Rest mansion restored and opened to the
public, it took a visitor's suggestion for us to think about adding a
gift shop.
He said, "You know, when people like us tour a
place, we're going to eat somewhere, and we're going to buy a memento
of our trip somewhere. What you need to do is get ALL of our
money."
Believe it or not, that concept appealed to
this Victorian Gentleman! The Victorian Lady said she could
almost see dollar signs rolling in my eyes, like I was a slot machine
that had hit the jackpot. So in 1995, our Victorian Gift Shop was
born. It didn't have much merchandise -- the Lady teased that it
was more of a card shop than a gift shop.
But over the years it has grown into one of
the best gift shops I've ever seen at a historic mansion. We tell
people we have over 2000 items that could have been in the mansion in
the 1890s ... but nothing you'll find at Wal-Mart! There's
everything from roller coaster music boxes to lithophane nightlights
... hundreds of books on the era to Victorian-style decor and clothing
... toys, games and candy to authentic replicas of Civil War swords and
Old West six-shooters!
-- The Victorian
Gentleman, George McGlothin
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The 1,200 square foot
showroom is located inside Falcon
Rest's Visitor Center next door to the mansion.