Vail Shopper Annie's Finds New Life Under Local Owner Catherine Gerken

Aspen —The first thing you notice when you step into the narrow storefront on the edge of Vail Village isn’t the merchandise; it’s the silence of a place that has suddenly stopped holding its breath. For over forty years, this shop — known simply as Annie’s — has been the quiet heartbeat of the valley’s domestic life, a repository for fine china and housewares that witnessed generations of locals set their tables and host their holidays. But the name that gave the store its identity, Annie Stauffer, the original owner and namesake, passed away in January, leaving a void that felt less like a vacancy and more like a missing limb. The obvious narrative would be one of loss, of a beloved institution fading into memory. But if you look closely, the story is actually one of aggressive continuity, a refusal to let the past be merely past.

Catherine Anne Gerken, the new owner, didn’t arrive with a business plan and a logo redesign; she arrived with a childhood nickname. “My first name is a double name, it’s Catherine Anne and my dad and other family members call me Catherine Annie,” Gerken told the Vail Daily. It’s a small linguistic trick, but it carries the weight of the entire transition. She grew up in the Vail Valley, left for college, and returned to work in retail, spending two decades at places like Roxy in Vail Village and Slifer Designs in Riverwalk in Edwards. It was in Edwards that she met Bill and Maggie Rey, owners of the Claggett/Rey Gallery, who introduced her to Jonathan Stauffer, the landlord of the building, and Judy Steiner, the previous owner. The connections were tight, local, and immediate.

Gerken bought the store and moved into the space just a week before the Independence Day holiday weekend. “It’s been a whirlwind to reorganize the store, I’m receiving shipments and unpacking boxes daily and summer is such a busy time, but it’s fun being in Vail Village,” she said. The energy she describes is palpable, a kinetic rush of inventory and customer interaction that contrasts sharply with the stillness of the late winter when the founder died. She’s keeping the store’s core identity intact, remaining a housewares destination, but injecting new vitality through brands like Juliska, a Portuguese line of ceramic and melamine dinnerware that she praises for its durability and color. “It looks like china, but it’s great for outdoor patio dining or if you have some restless grandkids, you don’t have to worry about these plates being broken,” she noted, grounding the aesthetic in the practical realities of family life.

There’s a warmth to the way Gerken talks about the old customers who have started coming back, the sense that the community itself is acting as a stabilizing force. She’s listening to what they ask for, using her own experience of knowing what people like to order products. This isn’t just a transactional relationship; it’s a social contract renewed daily. The store is a mirror of the valley’s own resilience, a place where the rough edges of change are smoothed out by the simple act of serving a customer. As the summer crowd swells and the shelves fill with new linens from Le Jacquard Francais and Ngala Trading, the air inside the shop is thick with the scent of polished wood and fresh paper packaging. Outside, the mountains stand firm against the sky, indifferent to the human dramas unfolding below, while inside, the cash register rings, a sharp, clear sound that cuts through the noise and reminds you that the business, like the people who run it, is very much alive.