Upstate House

Follow Your Creative Whim to Estro in Andes

By Elias Levey-Swain  |  Fall 2025   |  The Source

When Sara Sharpe and Harry Benson first visited the 100-year-old garage in the microscopic Delaware County hamlet of Andes, they didn’t see it for what it was—“a dirty, empty warehouse with holes in the roof,” as Benson recalls—but for what it could become.

A year (and much elbow grease) later, the building reopened its doors to reveal Estro, a vintage furniture showroom, as well as an architecture studio and boutique grocery. And this, the couple promises, is only the beginning.

Sharpe and Benson landed in Andes two years ago after a decade in New York City. “We wanted a break, we wanted space, we wanted to see the mountains,” Benson remembers. But beyond a pastoral reprieve from city life, they were hungry for a project. When a historic 6,000-square-foot garage on Main Street came up for sale not long after their arrival, the gears began to turn. They bought the building and got to work.

“I’m not afraid of reinvention,” says Sharpe—an unsurprising reflection for a seasoned shapeshifter. From a small town in Australia, Sharpe practiced commercial litigation in her home country before moving to New York City, where she spent the next decade in corporate advertising. All the while, a love of design and an expanding furniture collection foreshadowed her next professional evolution. “The minute we saw this space, it was, like, ‘Here’s your furniture warehouse, Sara,’” she remembers.

A multi-hyphenate himself, Benson, from the UK, maintained his career as a creative strategist while managing the renovation’s constructional components. With Sharpe taking the lead on operations and curation, the couple fluidly tag-teamed the renovation as a skeleton crew of two, remaking the vacant industrial space into the inviting, well-appointed showroom they envisioned.

With a sprawling, open-concept layout, Estro specializes in European furniture, lighting fixtures, and artwork from the mid-20th century. Inspired by French, Italian, and Scandinavian traditions, Estro sells objects that are aesthetically timeless and built to last—a design sensibility its owners think aligns well with life in the Catskills.

“There’s things in here that have lived many, many, many lives,” explains Benson. “These things have been around, some of them, 70 years already. They’re gonna be around 70 more.”

Numbered among Estro’s current treasures are an oil painting titled Hillscape by Swedish artist Elli Hemberg ($1,200), a Borens Model 507 table lamp ($700), and a Tobia Scarpa Bastiano sofa ($3,500).

Acknowledging the price tags, Sharpe explains that Estro isn’t trying to be CB2 or Ikea. “You’re not meant to walk in here and buy every single thing for your whole house,” she explains. “But these are key pieces that you’ll have for a lifetime…and they don’t lose their value.” Sharpe and Benson are proud to observe that Estro is not merely a trendy destination for wealthy weekenders, but a frequent stopover for their Andes neighbors and the larger Catskill crowd.

Aside from being a cheeky anagram of “store,” estro translates from Italian to mean creative impulse or whim. As a name, it bespeaks both the origin and consequence of the store’s contents. Estro’s collection is curated to stoke the inventive passion of visitors, encouraging them to design a room or entire home around a single, show-stopping piece.

Behind the showroom is the 1,000-square-foot future home of Benson’s nascent passion project. Andes Workshop, opening later this year, will offer work space, industrial-grade equipment, and educational programming to the surrounding community. The vision responds to Benson’s persistent itch for tangible, hands-on projects, and pays homage to the building’s 100-year history of “building, making, and repairing things.”

The building also boasts two compact storefronts on either side of Estro’s garage-door entry. On the left is Onland Architecture, operated by Landon Brown, and on the right is Little Grocer, another of Sharpe and Benson’s undertakings. Open Wednesday through Sunday on a well-trafficked kink in Route 28, the little shop offers coffee, produce, and other provisions to neighbors and travelers passing through the bucolic mountain town. Current offerings include Clark’s Whole Milk ($4), Prosciutto and Butter Baguettes ($12), and Van Meter Family Farms Blueberries ($6).

Sharpe and Benson refer to their building as the Andes Garage, invoking its original 1922 name as a nod to the broader history of makers and merchants in the region. Their ambition is to build on that history, leveraging their space and resources to host community events and collaborate with local artists and artisans.

The couple, who are expecting their first child in October, speak most often (and most excitedly) in the future tense. Neither depleted by all they’ve done nor daunted by what remains, they are instead invigorated by all that might be.

Estro is open Saturdays, Sundays, and by appointment.

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