Ensemble & Co

Behind an Art Deco frontage on Crookwell's main street, more than twenty independent makers share a single grand room, with clothing, jewellery, homewares, furniture, art, plants and gifts arranged along original timber counters and a former bank strongroom still set into the wall. The building went up in 1919 as a drapery and hardware store, burned down in 1938 and was rebuilt in the style that still defines it, all arched windows and marble. Opened in 2021 by a local couple, the collective doubles as a cafe: a weekend coffee bar pours brews and cake, and a nursery occupies the rear. It has quickly become a reason visitors turn off the highway toward Crookwell, and a working model for how a small tablelands town keeps its retail worth the drive.