Olympic Lavender Co. opens shop in the downtown corridor

Published 2:15 pm Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Olympic Lavender Co.

Where: 120 W. Washington St., Sequim

Phone: 683-9975/855-683-9975

On the web: www.olympiclavender.com

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday

Within 15 minutes of its grand opening on Friday, Dec. 4, Olympic Lavender Co. in downtown Sequim had its first customer and a small world experience.

A visitor from Scottsdale, Ariz., exclaimed to owners Marco and Christa Hermosillo, that her very first encounter with a lavender farm had been been at theirs — Olympic Lavender Heritage Farm — during a recent Lavender Festival.

“We’d been dreaming about opening a store for a while and since downtown shop opportunities don’t come up very often, we jumped on it,” said Christa. “We envisioned exactly what it turned out to be,” she said gesturing to the airy and artfully decorated shop in multiple tints and tones of purple, accented with white.

“We wanted it to be a complement for our modern boutique design and to bring the unique feeling of our farm to the city,” Marco explained. “It’s a pleasant atmosphere for all the senses.”

The couple obtained USDA-certification for growing, processing, distilling essential oil and making all its own lavender products, a host of which are stocked in open-faced cabinets, on two massive tables painted in deep lavender and an innovative “mountain of tables” display.

Products include lotions, body mists, artisan soaps, massage oils, scrubs, oils, lip balms, salves, sachets, bubble baths and bath salts. There’s also a corner with lavender teas, herb blends and spices.

“It’s pretty much all things lavender,” Marco said. The couple shared, “We think we bring a unique lavender experience to downtown Sequim and a fresh face to the downtown business core and we’re excited about that.”

Olympic’s origins

The original Olympic Lavender Farm was one of the first growers to join the Sequim lavender movement in 1995 and for nearly two decades was an active part of the Sequim Lavender Festival. When the Hermosillos saw it for sale, they moved from Utah and vowed to keep it a working farm. They purchased it in July 2013, giving up their jobs — hers as a biochemist and his as a university administrator.

“We wanted to be closer to family — we both grew up in Washington, Marco in Sequim and me on a ranch in the northeast part of the state,” Christa said, “and we fell in love with lavender. One of the main reasons we got the farm was for agri-tourism — this shop is just an extension of the farm.”

Marco added, “We fell in love with the whole idea of growing lavender and raising our kids in a Sequim farm business.”

From planting to packaging, Marco quipped, “You could say the business is from farm to body.”

Reach Patricia Morrison Coate at pcoate@sequimgazette.com.