Tucked into a storefront at 277 Water Street in Warren, Rhode Island, The Lady Next Door has been part of the East Bay’s vintage fabric for more than four decades, though the shop itself has changed hands, addresses, and even its footprint along the way. The name traces back to 1982, when Sandy Nathanson, a former prop mistress and set decorator for Trinity Repertory Company who worked alongside theater figures like Adrian Hall, Richard Cumming, and Eugene Lee, began selling her own finds out of a backroom in a Water Street antique shop called Square Peg. Passersby who asked the Square Peg owner about the items in the window kept hearing the same answer: that’s from the lady next door. The nickname stuck, and eventually became the shop’s permanent name. Sandy ran the business for decades before handing it over in 2020 to Christine Stulik, who had first discovered the store as a theater student and Barrington teenager drawn in by its mix of costume-worthy clothing and one-of-a-kind objects. Sandy passed away later that same year, leaving Christine to carry the shop forward through a pandemic and, more recently, through a forced relocation when her original building’s owners declined to renew her lease. The move turned into an upgrade: the current two-story space is roughly triple the size of the old storefront and considerably brighter, giving the curated inventory more room to breathe.
Inside, shoppers find a rotating mix of vintage clothing spanning multiple decades, jewelry, accessories, decorative housewares, and vintage textiles, alongside a dedicated vintage bridal selection for brides seeking something with history rather than something off a rack. Recent finds have included a 1960s Lilly Pulitzer shift dress and a 1980s Fendi silk blouse, part of an inventory that tends to lean toward designer and well-made pieces rather than generic secondhand stock, with price points generally running from about 128 to 350 dollars depending on rarity and condition. Beyond the retail floor, the shop operates an estate acquisition arm called TLND Estates, through which the team sources directly from estate sales and private collections, a practice that keeps the merchandise mix fresh and gives the store first access to pieces that never make it to a general auction block. Customers can sign up for email updates to hear about new estate finds and shop events before items hit the sales floor or the markdown racks.
The Lady Next Door is open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m., a limited weekend schedule that rewards planning ahead for anyone hoping to browse a particular category or catch new estate arrivals. The shop keeps in touch with regulars through Facebook and Instagram, where staff post new arrivals and behind-the-scenes looks at sourcing trips. Located in the heart of Warren’s small but active downtown shopping strip, the store sits within easy walking distance of the town’s waterfront and other local shops, making it a natural stop for anyone exploring the East Bay’s antique and vintage scene. Few shops in the region can claim a founding story this specific, tied directly to a real nickname earned on a real sidewalk, and that continuity from Sandy Nathanson’s original theatrical eye to Christine Stulik’s expanded showroom is what still defines the place today. The Lady Next Door in Warren is a multi-generational vintage and antique boutique built on an estate-sourced, designer-leaning inventory of clothing, jewelry, and home goods that traces its name to a real backroom shop on Water Street.
