above: (left) Jackie Fucigna; (right) No. 299 excels at what Jackie calls “home furnishings you can carry to the car.”
Photography by Venera Alexandrova
When Old Greenwich native Jackie Fucigna was restoring a handsome vintage Colonial in Fairfield, she explored flea markets and estate sales for vintage home goods that were in need of some love. Her eye for design, along with a few coats of the perfect shade of chalk paint, brought her finds back to décor life.
While many of her refurbished pieces ended up in her family’s living spaces, the extras went to her garage. There, she sold her inventory in pop-up sales three or four times a year. She even staged her garage to look like a cozy design boutique by adding in lots of seasonal home décor that she sold, too.
Friends kept telling Fucigna her hobby was really a business. The crowds at her garage events suggested they were right. “I never considered myself an entrepreneur,” says Fucigna, a former public relations professional who was a stay-at-home mom of three when her informal enterprise began. “But I began to wonder if there was something there.”
Eleven years ago, Fucigna found an abandoned storefront off-the-beaten retail path in Fairfield to see if the seasonal business she dubbed No. 299—in homage to the numerical address of her original Fairfield home—had staying power. Turns out it did.
Success in her original Fairfield location was followed by two moves in downtown Fairfield and then expansion three years ago
to a second location in downtown New Canaan, where Fucigna and her family had lived before Fairfield. Late last year, she opened her third No. 299 in Old Greenwich, where she was raised and her parents still live.
Yes, there is a theme here: Each of Fucigna’s boutiques are based in communities where her connections are strong.
“It’s really been a full-circle moment for me,” she says of her Old Greenwich shop, nestled on the first floor of a Victorian-style home updated as commercial space set back from Sound Beach Avenue. “Old Greenwich reminds me of the neighborhood where I ended up living in Fairfield—sweet and closeknit, full of beautiful homes with lots of charm and character.”
The move here has been full of serrendipity. It began when a New Canaan store customer, Riverside resident Kerry Anderson, urged her to find a home for No. 299 in Old Greenwich.
“I was a huge fan of her store and follow her on Instagram, and I told her there’s really nothing like what you’re doing in town,” says Anderson. “It was a void that needed to be filled.”
Fucigna began looking for vacant storefronts on Sound Beach Avenue the same day. And when she moved in, she learned that as a child her brother Tim had had regular playdates in the former house.
She has already received a warm welcome here for the kind of distinctive home accents she offers—well-curated goods that evoke her vintage-meets-modern design aesthetic.
“I love mixing old and new. You don’t have to fill your home with antiques to get the impact you can get just from adding in a few things that are vintage or that just look vintage,” she says. “They give every space the feeling that it’s more personal, and they also provide a sense of welcome.”
As for what’s in store, “I say I specialize in décor that you can carry to your car yourself,” she explains. So, while you can’t buy a sofa at No. 299, it’s a great place to discover the most interesting side table to sit next to it, along with mirrors, wall art, table décor, pillows, a charming array of hostess gifts jewelry and some women’s fashions.
You can explore Fucigna’s talents for designing with her No. 299 collections on Instagram @thisisninetyone, which features the ongoing evolution of her second Fairfield home—another fixer-upper she and her husband bought a few years ago as her kids headed off for college and their adult lives.
While retailing demands now keep Fucigna too busy to regularly take a paint brush to vintage finds, “my specialty is still the finishing touches,” she says. “I’ve learned it’s more than a hobby. It’s just in my blood.”
SPRING INTO DESIGN
Jackie’s spring room refresh tips
GO GREEN
“I love to add green to my spaces, and this is the perfect time to do it,” she says. Even some supermarket-sourced succulents rehomed in interesting containers can add new visual interest.
And they are also the perfect hostess gift. “Add in a candle or some tea towels, and it makes for a great presentation,” she says.
RECONSIDER SILVER
“Gold accents have been important in home design for a while, and I still love them; but I’m seeing lots of silver, and I like the idea of bringing that into your rooms,” she says. “If you have gold candles on your mantel, add in some silver ones just to give it the interest that comes from mixing metals.”