Our Story
It started with Mama.
Patricia Ramsay opened Pashley in 1990 and named it for her first granddaughter. Thirty-five years later, the store she built by hand is dressing her great-granddaughter.
Portrait to come
Patricia “Pat” Ramsay
A current portrait of Pat, photographed in the store, belongs here.
I
Patricia
Pat Ramsay is a seamstress by trade. In May 1990 she opened a small children's shop on Main Street in Cold Spring Harbor, a few doors from where the store stands today, and ran it herself: buying, fitting, wrapping, and getting to know every family who walked in.
Within a year the shop had outgrown its first room. In 1991 she moved it up the street to 169 Main, a two-story house built in the mid-1800s that had once been a doctor's home. She kept the rocking chairs on the porch. Each room upstairs and down became a different age.
Her grandchildren call her Mama. Customers who met her in 1990 still ask for her by name.
II
Why “Pashley”
The store is named for the middle name of Pat's first granddaughter.
Family was built into the business before it had a sign. When Pat needed a name, she took her first granddaughter's middle name and painted it over the door.
That is the whole brand. Not a concept, a person.
The sign over the door
Pashley
A granddaughter’s middle name, painted in green in 1990.
III
Growing up inside Pashley
When the grandchildren were small, Mama drafted them as models. Communion dresses, blazers, Easter outfits, whatever had just arrived went on a grandchild and in front of a camera.
Those photographs still hang on the store's walls. Regulars point them out to the same children, now grown, when they stop in with kids of their own.
Grandchildren modeling in the store, 1990s
The first storefront, Main Street, 1990
Pat behind the counter
Communion season window display
Archival photographs to be scanned. These frames are reserved for scans of the photographs on the store’s walls.
IV
The daughters
Pat has two daughters, Mary Benedetto and Debbie Schipper. Both grew up in and around the shop, and Debbie now runs it day to day as co-owner, buying at the New York shows each season and keeping the communion department stocked from January through spring.
There is one family detail regulars enjoy: the two sisters married two boys who had been best friends since childhood. Pashley has been the backdrop to all of it.
Portrait to come
Mary Benedetto
Portrait to come
Debbie Schipper
V
Cold Spring Harbor
Main Street is a fifth of a mile of nineteenth-century storefronts between the harbor and the hill, a National Register historic district since 1985. Pashley has been part of it for thirty-five years, long enough that customers now drive in from Westchester and New Jersey, and long enough that a mother who bought her daughter's communion dress here comes back for her granddaughter's.
Pat has been an active part of this community for decades. Specific organizations and roles will be listed here once the family confirms them.
VI
Four generations
A store named for a granddaughter is now dressing a great-granddaughter.
The newest member of the family is Pat's great-granddaughter, Lilly. Mama gets to dress her, the way she dressed Lilly's parents' generation and the one before it.
Through every generation Pashley has stayed what Pat built: a family business run on service, relationships and hard work, in a small blue house on Main Street.
Photograph to come
Pat and Lilly, in the store
Timeline
Thirty-five years on Main Street.
1990
Pat Ramsay opens Pashley on Main Street, Cold Spring Harbor, named for her first granddaughter's middle name.
1991
The shop moves up the street to 169 Main, a mid-1800s house, and grows to more than 2,000 square feet over two floors.
1990s
The grandchildren become the store's models. Their photographs still hang on the walls.
2000s
Debbie Schipper joins her mother as co-owner and takes on the day-to-day running of the store.
Date to be confirmed
2014
Long Islander News calls Pashley “Main Street's very own department store for kids.”
Today
Pat dresses her great-granddaughter Lilly. Four generations, one store.
Sources
- Long Islander News, “Main Street’s Very Own ‘Department Store’ For Kids,” Nov. 27, 2014.
- Long Islander News, “At Pashley’s, Always Looking Ahead,” Dec. 17, 2015.
- Cold Spring Harbor Main Street Association merchant listing.
- Family recollection (the store’s name, the models, the sisters, Lilly).
Come see the photographs on the wall.
169 Main Street, Cold Spring Harbor. Open seven days.