The Oscar can be found next to the Barbies. It’s all in the mix—an artful assemblage, really—at Scout House, a new boutique in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, that brings under-the-radar designers and makers in fashion, home, and food to the stylish denizens of the Berkshires. (Yes, they’ve always existed, but now, thanks to coronavirus-induced migratory patterns, they seem to abound.)
It’s the first retail project from Bobby Houston, a filmmaker. (He won the Academy Award, which is sadly not for sale, for his 2005 documentary, “Mighty Times: The Children’s March.”) He left California and landed in this quirky hamlet a decade ago, and embarked upon a second career buying, restoring, and flipping historic homes with his partner, Eric Shamie. For Scout House, he masterminded the build-out of a big old pile from 1860 on a prime patch of downtown, and then enlisted his friend the interior designer Jennifer Bianco to source the goods it would ultimately contain.
