Hanover’s Lemon Tree Gift Shop Expanding Into West Lebanon

Hanover — A week barely passes when another retail store, battered by the shift to online shopping, doesn’t announce it’s closing. So news that an independent shop is expanding by opening a second location suggests that all may not be over for traditional retailing.

Hanover’s boutique gift emporium The Lemon Tree is opening a second store in the Powerhouse Mall in West Lebanon later this summer, taking over space on the ground floor that was previously occupied by three separate retail outlets.

“It’s possible I’ve lost my mind,” said Lemon Tree owner Melissa Haas about the contrarian move, “but I’ve always been looking for an expansion opportunity. … We love our space in Hanover and it’s been very good to us. But there are areas I want to expand into and we don’t have the room here.”

Haas originally opened The Lemon Tree in the lower level of the old Campion’s department store building in 2012 at the corner of Lebanon and South Main streets — now occupied by Roberts Flowers.

Since then, she acquired the storefront around the corner that had been the longtime home of College Supplies, before it closed early in 2015 after 40 years in business.

Haas said that the Powerhouse Mall store will have 3,500 square feet of space, almost twice the room she now has in Hanover. The space will provide the “opportunity to expand in the home area, body and bath, add some (items) for the kitchen and a section for Vermont and New Hampshire products,” she said.

“We’re going to experiment a little, which we don’t have room for here,” she added.

Haas said she had been talking on-and-off for years with the leasing agent for Powerhouse Mall and she believes the location could pull in customers from the around the region area who don’t want to deal with the headache of parking in Hanover. The new location will be convenient for motorists traveling off the Interstate 89 and I-91 interchange, she said.

The Lemon Tree’s Powerhouse Mall space was previously occupied by artisanal olive oil store InfuseMe, which is moving to another spot in the mall; jewelry store Artifactory, which is consolidating with its Quechee Gorge Village location; and Feetnicks Footwear, which closed after owner Gordy Thomas retired.

How does a storefront manage to stay in business in the era of Amazon?

Haas said her store “offers an experience that people simply can’t get from online shopping. We all do online shopping — myself included — but we offer here the opportunity to see, to touch and (experience) visual stimulation.”