By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The first few steps into Nostalgic Dwelling, 4230 Charles St., feels like walking into a vintage loft.
Stephanie Towell, who runs the business with her husband, Brad, has filled the multilevel space with an eclectic mix of mid-century and post-modern furniture and other home decor.
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There are sofas with a 1970s vibe, hand-crafted woodwork and pottery, rugs, fixtures and other art that represents Towell’s personal style. She hopes you’ll find it fitting for your home, too.
“The hope is that somebody will come in and recognize themselves in some area of the store,” she said. “Our house is filled with a lot of things from all around the world, there’s a little bit of that flavor in here as well. Anything that feels hand-made, hand-crafted.”
The shop, which debuted last weekend, is open on Saturdays and Sundays and by appointment.
The vintage furniture and home decor shop fills space at the corner of Charles and Lexington Way that was home to Brian Thomas Photography for 25 years. He sold the building about five years ago and it was most recently a body shop.
The new business is part of a homecoming for Brad and Stephanie Towell, who returned to Rockford last year after more than 20 years away. They returned home to be closer to family, especially after her father, Tim Scott, fell ill. Scott, a longtime drummer who many knew by the name “Skinny Sticks,” died in December.
Making movies, moving home
The couple moved from Rockford around 2002 to Milwaukee, where they spent the next four years before settling in Pittsburgh. There, they both found work with movie and television studies: Brad, as a graphic designer, and Stephanie, who handled set decorating and dressing.
There’s plenty such work to go around in Pittsburgh, which has been home to more than 120 movies since 1990, according to the Pittsburgh Film Office.
“The key thing behind doing movie work is that you’re decorating based on a character and a time and a place. It’s a lot like doing interior design client work,” Stephanie Towell said. “This store is sort of a bigger version of that. You’ve got all these different vignettes that are my aesthetic but also a little bit of something for everybody.”
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Some of the films Brad Towell has contributed to include a pair of Tom Hanks’ movies — “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and “A Man Called Otto” — and the upcoming “Drive-Away Dolls” from director Ethan Coen. He’s continuing to work in the industry, and is now part of a project filming in Chicago.
Stephanie Towell has worked on Lifetime movies and Apple+ pictures such as “Cha-Cha Real Smooth.” Towell, who is also an artist, has found curating her collection of vintage furniture and decor to be her new art form, her husband said.
“This has become her art: the collecting, curating and decorating,” he said. “She really does approach it like that, which is why she did so well in movies because you’re creating an environment, you’re telling a story.”
About | Nostalgic Dwelling
Where: 4230 Charles St., Rockford
Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; weekdays by appointment
On social: On Facebook and Instagram @nostalgicdwelling
Contact: 779-970-7757
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas