Valerie Whitcomb and Anasthasia Darrah welcome visitors to their new store in Jerome.
A new gift shop in an old town is what Ghost Town Handicrafts owners Valerie Whitcomb and her daughter, Anasthasia Darrah, have brought to the storied city of Jerome.
Perched 5,000 feet up on an escarpment overlooking the Verde Valley, Whitcomb loves to step outside her store for the view. “Every evening when the sun starts to set behind Mingus Mountain, a shadow is cast over Verde Valley and for about 10 minutes the red rocks of Sedona brilliantly light up. It is so amazing to see. We also have a great view of the San Francisco Peaks.”
Offering an assorted mix of handcrafted items for sale and classes for various fine arts, almost all of Ghost Town Handicrafts products are handmade. The new store opened in April. “Right now, we have about 24 crafters who are offering products, “said Darrah.
Located in the middle of town at the Merchants Gathering building, Whitcomb and Darrah say they have found their “happy place.”
“I am deeply honored to be a part of this community,” said Darrah, who has a master’s degree in finance and commutes to Jerome from Prescott. “Being able to take this journey with my mom is the greatest blessing. We just love Jerome and I’ve wanted to open a store here for as long as I can remember.”
“We try to maintain a very chill atmosphere and everything here in the store is touchable except for a few crystal items, which are on higher shelves,” said Whitcomb. “We have a 14-year-old girl who crochets animals. She has been a big hit and we’ve had to restock four times since we’ve opened. Another vendor is a 17-year-old boy who also crochets. One vendor makes dreadlocks and we have photographers, a watercolor artist/muralist from Prescott, t-shirts, macramé, one seller does taxidermy with insects and a three-dimensional printer is doing phenomenal [work] and is one of our top sellers.”
“I had been looking for retail space for a couple years here. I didn’t plan on having a craft store, but everything fell into place for us to have this shop and I don’t question it for a second. I plan on being here for the long haul,” said Darrah. “We love that we’re on Hull Street and the history of it adds some fun and humor. But even more than that, we are on a street with a lot of female business owners, and we feel very honored to be among them.”
“Jerome has always been a special place for us,” said Whitcomb. “When my kids were old enough to wear a backpack, we would hike Mingus Mountain to watch the hang gliders. In the 1950s, my grandfather worked as an engineer in the mine here before they closed and my dad went to Jerome High School.”
“I would call this a crafter’s happy place,” said Ashley Sanderson, a Prescott resident who teaches special education in Ashfork. “There’s always something to build, create or try here and if someone wanted to try a new craft but didn’t want to invest, this is the ideal place to do it. I grew up in the tri-city area and love coming to Jerome and just hanging out here at the store. I will be teaching an art color class in the near future and hope to attend a leather crafting and metal stamping art class.”
Ghost Handicrafts offers two workstations for crafts and an entire section dedicated to kids. “Children can drop in and sit and play and make free crafts,” said Whitcomb.
Long ago, the Merchants Gathering was once a Studebaker car dealership. “The business next to us, Scooter Trash, was the service department and where we are now housed was the parts department. Volunteers run Jerome, so they voted us in and our license was approved. We were totally blessed,” said Whitcomb, who rides her Harley Davidson motorcycle to work every day from her Camp Verde home.
“Long term, we hope to add more and more classes to our roster and promote crafting for all age groups,” said Darrah. “We are looking into hosting school groups for craft projects and adding kids’ craft classes. We also hope to add more to our free craft section and get more people utilizing it. Once we are more established, we plan to sponsor local non-profit organizations with a percentage of our sales going back to them.”
While Jerome’s population is less than 500 people, the town sees an average of more than a million visitors a year. FBN
By V. Ronnie Tierney, FBN
For more information about Ghost Town Handicrafts, the owners can be reached at ghosttownhandicrafts@gmail.com. They can be found on Facebook and Instagram #ghost_town_handicrafts.
Ghost Town Handicrafts
300 Hull Street
Jerome, Arizona
Photos by V. Ronnie Tierney, Fresh Focuses Photography: Ghost Town Handicrafts owners Anasthasia Darrah and her mother, Valerie Whitcomb, welcome visitors to their store, which was once an auto parts department.