Editor’s Note (October 2024): We love and celebrate our mountain communities; however, following the devastation of Hurricane Helene, many areas remain inaccessible for travel. Please check DriveNC.gov’s travel map for the latest on traveling to these areas.

Martha Carlton photograph by Tim Robison

Martha Carlton had an ardent morning routine back in the fall of 2008. She’d drop her daughter off at school and then come home, lace up her sneakers, and set off walking the hilly streets of Brevard, the Transylvania County seat where her family had recently relocated. “You really learn a town by walking it,” she says, “and that’s what I did — I walked up and down Main and Broad streets, thinking ‘There are definitely holes here, and I think I can fill them.’”

Carlton’s niche was women’s apparel and high-end gifts. The former schoolteacher had owned a successful shop with this concept in Michigan, and she had an early inkling that her new store, Theophilus, would attract not only loyal locals but also visitors who strolled the town’s thoroughfares.

Carlton curates her favorite decor and artfully made pieces to inspire her customers’ own homes. photograph by Tim Robison

In the 15 years since Theophilus opened, both the shop and Brevard have grown dramatically, giving Carlton reason to expand her lines, staff, and square footage. Beautifully chic, the store’s bureaus, tables, and a sweeping stone-topped bar display stationery and cookbooks, linens and jewelry, home accessories and women’s fashions.

“I went into business to love on women,” she says. The best times, she adds, are when a daughter, mother, and grandmother come in together. “I want it to be an inviting, multigenerational place, and to do that, you have to keep the main thing the main thing.” And when customers leave with full bags — Carlton’s curated favorites now destined for new homes — it’s certain that all those morning miles were worthwhile.

Theophilus
44 East Main Street
Brevard, NC 28712
(828) 884-2994
theophilusnc.com