The red barn at 225 26th Street has been the same shape since 1948, when Rowland Crawford drew a 30,000-square-foot open-air plan around a courtyard fire pit. What sits inside the barn has always moved, but this summer it moved faster than usual. Two new tenants arrived within weeks of each other, both of them firsts for their brands in this part of Los Angeles.
For residents who already treat the Mart as a Saturday-morning waypoint, the interesting question isn't whether the block got busier. It's what the new arrivals say about who the leasing office thinks is walking through the arches now.
The Two Arrivals That Reset The Tenant Mix
The British resortwear label Orlebar Brown opened its Country Mart store on Friday, June 12, 2026. It's the brand's fourth California outpost, alongside Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and Montecito. The Chanel-owned label built its reputation on tailored swim shorts and has since expanded into linen shirts, knitwear and footwear.
The second arrival is Varley, the women's contemporary label. Its Country Mart boutique is the brand's first location in Los Angeles County. Prior to this summer, the only other California Varley store sat inside Fashion Island in Newport Beach. A sister store is scheduled to open at the Marin Country Mart in Larkspur on July 26, which tells you the operator sees the two coastal Marts as parallel bets rather than sequential ones.
Read the two openings together and a pattern surfaces: Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Montecito, Larkspur, Brentwood. These are not neighborhood retail decisions. These are resort-town decisions, and the Country Mart is being priced into that map.
The Mart already carried Jenni Kayne, Broken English, Pippa Small, goop Brentwood, Turpan and Poppy. The new pair doesn't disrupt that roster so much as sharpen it. Swim shorts and technical women's activewear are the categories that fill a suitcase for Montecito or Malibu. They are also, quietly, the categories that a Brentwood family shops for locally rather than driving to Melrose Place.
What The Wednesday Rhythm Still Does
The reason the Mart doesn't feel like an outdoor shopping center is that the calendar underneath the retail is aimed at people who live within walking distance. That calendar has held up through the tenant turnover.
Cassidy Preschool hosts Story Time in the courtyard every Wednesday at 11 a.m., a summer series that runs from May 13 through the end of August. It's free, it's stroller-scaled, and it happens whether or not any new store is opening that week.
Around it, a few other rhythms:
- Farmshop takes pre-orders for holiday courtyard meals. On Father's Day this year, that meant fried chicken and complimentary root beer floats between noon and 2 p.m.
- The courtyard big screen has been running through the FIFA World Cup summer, including the USA versus Bosnia & Herzegovina match on July 1.
- Jewelry designer Pippa Small used the courtyard for a pop-up with a public conversation moderated by Victoria Gomelsky, who has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
- Sweet Rose Creamery poured complimentary ice cream for the Varley opening, the kind of soft-launch handshake between two tenants that only reads as normal at a place like the Mart.
None of these are new formats. What's notable is that they didn't get displaced when the leasing terms got more ambitious. A retail center chasing higher rents usually loses its story time. This one still has it, still weekly, still free.
The Walking Order That Still Works
For residents who already know the Mart, the arrivals reshuffle a familiar route rather than replace it. A working sequence for a Saturday morning:
- Coffee and a pastry from Farmshop, taken to a courtyard bench rather than a table.
- Diesel Bookstore for a browse and, on many weekends, a stack that includes something a staff pick set aside.
- The new Varley store, which is the shortest walk from the courtyard center.
- Reddi Chick for the counter lunch that has been on the same spot for decades, or Barney's for a burger, or Frida for tacos.
- Sweet Rose Creamery on the way back to the car, or Edelweiss if the kids get a vote.
- Toy Crazy and the small carousel for anyone under seven.
Orlebar Brown sits within a few steps of Jenni Kayne and Broken English, which makes the men's-versus-women's-versus-jewelry loop a single lap rather than three separate errands. The layout was always designed for this kind of drift, but the new tenants tighten it.
Why The Format Holds
The Country Mart is often described as a preserved 1950s artifact that got a careful restoration a decade ago. That's accurate but incomplete. The reason it works in 2026 is that its economics are the opposite of what a modern lifestyle center chases. Its parking is free and its own. Its footprint is small enough that a tenant leaving is felt immediately by every other tenant. Its fire-pit courtyard is a common area that generates zero direct revenue, which means it functions as a park with adjacent commerce rather than commerce dressed up as a park.
When a brand like Orlebar Brown or Varley chooses this format, they are choosing against a mall lease and against a Melrose storefront. What they get in exchange is a captive audience of Brentwood, Santa Monica north-of-Montana, and Pacific Palisades residents who treat the Mart as a shared front porch. What they give up is signage, foot traffic from tourists, and the ability to run a store larger than a few hundred square feet.
The J.S. Rosenfield & Co. operator has been running this playbook long enough that its Larkspur and Montecito sister properties now share tenant lists. That's why the Varley store here matters beyond its own square footage. It signals that the Country Mart family of properties is being merchandised as a single coastal circuit, which is exactly the market the brand was built for.
What A Resident Actually Notices
For the household that has been walking to the Mart for a decade, the practical changes this summer are small and specific. The men's shop that carries a linen shirt for a Malibu wedding is now three doors from the coffee. The women's activewear that used to require a drive to Fashion Island is now on the same block as the pediatrician. The Wednesday 11 a.m. courtyard still belongs to a preschool.
The block hasn't been rebranded. It has been rethreaded. If the pattern holds through fall, the Country Mart will keep doing what it has done since 1948, which is to let the neighborhood decide what the neighborhood shops for, and quietly upgrade the shelves.
For residents thinking about how the surrounding blocks are changing along with the Mart, or for owners weighing what a summer of new retail energy means for the north-of-San-Vicente market, the team at Pence Hathorn Silver is available to talk through it. Schedule a Free Consultation whenever the timing is right.
