Sandy Warner: Oakland HOME's Creative Visionary

Words by Melinda Green / Photography by Ben Callahan / Layout by Tori Smith

For the past ten years, Sandy Warner has put her stamp on Oakland HOME in Dublin, creating one of the city's most delightful home decor stores.

The company's legacy dates to 1940, when Gustav and Bertha Reiner, German immigrants, started Oakland Nursery. The current “original” garden store on Oakland Park Avenue in Columbus opened in the mid-1970s, followed by stores in Delaware, Dublin, and New Albany.

Warner, a photographer and visual artist with an MFA, has been with the company for over 40 years; her husband, Mike, a landscape architect, for over 50. Her energy is contagious.

It was at the time when garden centers were not looking like hardware stores anymore,” she recalled. “They wanted to transform themselves into family-friendly places with a softer environment.

Warner became a buyer, then helped open the Dublin store in 2005. Eventually, in 2013, Oakland HOME was born, and she found her niche.

The store is full of treasures: A vintage wedding chest from India, a mango wood shelving unit, distressed antique metal bird cages, cooking-vessel fire pits, and a leopard-print cannon chair. This, maybe, is what the big-box home decor stores want to be.

But vintage pieces aren't all that Oakland HOME has to offer. Beyond the entryway's bold, fourfoot-tall outdoor planters is everything from jewel-encrusted glassware to fine outdoor dining essentials to a collection of eclectic, imported wines. Some customers drop in to feel inspired, basking in the peaceful ambiance of their “happy place.”

“It's interesting,” Warner said. “People come back and say, ‘You know, I was walking through. And then suddenly, I found this piece, took a picture of it, and it was haunting me, and I had to come back and get it.’” And that inspiration is just what Oakland HOME is all about.

Oakland HOME’s 10-year anniversary celebration, full of prizes and specials, will be from September 1-10, 2023.