The Town & Country Store was located in the Harding Block at 89 Main Street. According to a former resident, the store would extend credit to local teenagers.
Adirondack Daily Enterprise, July 11, 1986
Clothing store had home in village for 23 years
SARANAC LAKE - It is now about 23 days until a women's clothing store which has operated in Saranac Lake for 23 years will close its doors.
Town and Country Shop owner Hans Katzenstein says he and his wife, Lilo, will retire to their home in Ticonderoga — no retirment to the warmer southern states, he likes the Adirondacks.
For many years he has also liked Saranac Lake as a place to do business. He says he bought the Town and Country from Richard Goldstein in 1965. Goldstein had started it in 1942 along with a man Katzenstein remembers only as Schubert. The clothing store, under Goldstein's management, was first housed across from the local post office on Broadway. About 1950 it was moved to 19 Broadway, now home of a natural foods store. It was at that location, in 1965, that Katzenstein took over ownership.
In 1974, he moved the store to its present home at 89 Main Street. Katzenstein recalls there was a clothing store on the premises some years before he bought the building, so the premises was easily accommodative to his business. The large structure is now over 100 years old and listed as an historic site, he says. Many customers, especially out-of-towners, admire the oak exterior. It may be the only building in this area with such an outside appearance; Katzenstein said it is polished every two years.
Katzenstein has also owned the Parnell Shoe Store for 15 years. A few years ago he moved it from the Hotel Saranac to share the floors of the Town and Country.
When the Town and Country closes at the end of July and its deep red welcome mat (with the lettering T & C) is removed, shoppers can still step over the doorsill into what will be an entire store devoted to Parnell's.
The business will also be expanded to include good costume jewelry, a "sweater land" with such international brands as Alpenblick, and a lingerie department.
As she has for many years, Ida Longtemps will continue to manage Parnell's. (The store's name is derived from its first owner Parnell La tour). She will be joined by Jeanette Shatraw who has been her working companion for 22 years.
Longtemps is a Saranac Lake native who was born not too many feet from the store she now manages. What is now the Saranac Lake Free Library at 100 Main St., was her birthplace.
She says her years ai Parnell's have been "wonderful" and she likes meeting "so many nice people."
Many of those are dropping by the store this month as Town and Country hosts its close-out sale.
When it's over, Longtemps will find a new doormat, put up a new sign and continue doing what she likes best, being a businesswoman in Saranac Lake.
