Pearl Wortham wants to welcome Palm Beach back into her "living room."
Following a year-long absence spent in Palm Beach Gardens, the children's boutique owner known for her personal touch is re-opening Cloud 10 in the Worth Avenue shopping district. The upscale clothing and toy shop opens at its new location, 404 Hibiscus Ave., Oct. 6.
"We're coming back to the Avenue under a new entity," Wortham said last week. "It's going to be a whole new store."
After almost two decades in Palm Beach at 450 S. County Road, Wortham moved Cloud 10 in June 2007 to a newer retail space within Downtown at the Gardens, a shopping-entertainment center adjacent to The Gardens Mall. At the time of the move, Wortham cited Palm Beach Gardens' promising surge of affluent young families as a catalyst.
But despite a growing following to the north, longtime Palm Beach customers began bemoaning the drive and beckoning for the boutique's return, said Wortham, who owns the shop with her daughter, Christie Wortham, and Mary Shaw and Joan Eigen.
"We had a very close relationship with our customers," Wortham said. "We were dressing the grandchildren of one-time customers from New York. That's hard to replace."
The new location, with its tan exterior and black awning, is nestled between the Balatro art gallery and William R. Eubanks' antique shop at the corner of Hibiscus and Peruvian avenues. The 1,200-square-foot site last housed Style de Vie, an art gallery that closed in 2006.
On Thursday, Shaw and Christie Wortham sat inside the mostly empty shop envisioning the final product as a workman washed the windows.
At 1,700 square feet, the Palm Beach Gardens store was larger and narrower but not as intimate as the new site, said Christie Wortham, the shop manager.
"That store was beautiful, but this one has a lot of character," she said.
On Saturday, brown paper sealed off the shop's large front windows, but Pearl Wortham promises they will soon showcase a succulent baby clothing display "mothers and grandmothers will drool over."
Inside, soft light blue walls will complement racks of the kind of bright, colorful clothing Cloud 10 is famous for. A joint playroom/fitting room will feature plush stools and games to keep youngsters occupied while their mothers shop. The toy section's selection will include books and puzzles and Corolle dolls imported from France.
And although the shop will still adhere to the same principles of style, elegance and service, she said, "homework" has revealed new trends in both fashion and the economy.
Even on Palm Beach, customers are holding on tighter to their money, Pearl Wortham said, and her ticket prices and inventory reduction will reflect that. "There will be a lot of new surprises and things people will enjoy seeing," she said.
Like Eubanks, Worth Avenue Association President Sherry Frankel said she missed Cloud 10's award-winning window displays and the mixture of fun and elegance Pearl Wortham always brought to the area.
"We're just totally delighted she's coming home," Frankel said.
