Nesting Dolls

A very unique shop but the owner is super nice and helpful. She talked with us for awhile and help recommend a cool gift

these days everything is chain stores or Amazon. This place is refreshingly unique, special and a total random gem. We happened upon it on our way to a big high school cross country race and I am so glad I stopped. A treasure trove of Russian nesting dolls run by a fascinating couple who are as warm as they are interesting. I hope my life brings me to this place again some day.

I absolutely adore this place. They have a lovely selection of different dolls and other unique collectibles. The owner is so very friendly and personable, she always has a great story every time I stop in. Big bonus they also accept American Express. Best place to go for a unique gift idea!

I’m pretty sure there is no other place quite like this anywhere.
Officially (judging by the receipt) called Baskets, this business is better identified by its lime green-​on-​fuchsia title — NESTING DOLLS — painted on the cottage like structure that stores just that. and plenty of it.
The boyfriend and I were staying in this nowhere town for a long weekend, and couldn’t help but noticing the shop several times during expensive cab rides and walks through scorching midsummer heat. On one of these walks, we finally ducked inside for shade, and found the owners Frank and Halina in repose on seats behind the counter, along with their little beagle, whom I remember as Lucy. Frank and Lucy exited the scene, and soon it was just us and Halina, who asked us all about where we were and what we were planning to do. She started giving us real local advice, which would eventually save our day because the heat index was not helpful to our original plans.
Nesting Dolls is lined floor to ceiling in every manifestation of this curious collectible that you could ever imagine, in series of 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, and probably more. The dolls ranged in price from a few dollars to a few digits, but all are awe inspiring, hand crafted, and full of stories.
There was one whole shelf of original Matryoshka dolls, and the option to paint your own (which I really regret I didn’t realize until I read a brochure on the train speeding back towards the city). Some were neon, some were sparkly… there was a Halloween series with a black cat nested in a spider painting nested in a skeleton nested in a witch… a Yellow Submarine series, the outside of which was, yes, a yellow submarine with actual fins… a totem pole doll containing noble paintings of proud Native American chiefs… a set by a Russian artist that had romantic paintings of a tall ship at sea replicated on each of its five components… there were even peanut sized miniatures of seals, tigers, and so on, which boggled the mind, because how can you fit such tiny things into something that’s already so tiny itself?
A back room had more random antiques and collectibles; a standout being a straw mummy-​shaped casket.
After really putting Halina through the grinder by asking her to open this set and that set and tell me the special story about each one, I finally settled on a 3-​piece gilded medieval Catholic nativity doll. Go figure I’d choose that out of all the offbeat alternatives, but it was very finely made. As she rang me up, gently bagging the puchase in a flannel drawstring pouch, she also told us about a hot air balloon fest in Poughkeepsie and a river pool in Beacon (separate review). She also reminded us that we could take the train there.
We strode outside but quickly decided that it was so hot that we’d rather cab it to Beacon than walk to the train station! On the way back to the store to call a cab and wait in a climate controlled environment, I saw something amazing in the window that I’d somehow missed before: FIVE PIECE JIMI HENDRIX NESTING DOLL. Yes, this was really happening, and yes, he’d even been marked down. No one marks Jimi down and puts him in a corner. So before the cab even arrived, Halina had taken Jimi down from the shelf, dusted him off, swaddled him in flannel, and made him mine.
It’s good that the store’s so out of the way, or I’d be like the cat lady of babushka dolls. And I am definitely anticipating my next trip to that neck of the woods…