MONTEGO BAY, St James – Christine Marzouca’s contractor just couldn’t understand why she chose to use imported African Mahogany for the 8 by 7 ft doors at the entrance of her new store, Bohios, at the Fairview shopping centre in Montego Bay.

“It’s just a store… why do you want to do this?” he asked incredulously.

Marzouca, formerly Gourzong, did her best to explain that Bohios was much more than that to her.

It’s a home, it’s my dream,” she said.

The full effect didn’t hit home until the store was officially opened on Friday.

There was none of the blaring excitement that accompanied the simultaneous official opening of the Bogue Branch of Courts, Jamaica’s largest furniture chain, a few metres away. However, a satisfied Marzouca was able to report bumper sales for the first day.

“Everything, from the front of the store to here,” she said, indicating a range of sofas, armoires, and other furnishings that were handpicked from Indonesia and China during an expansive trip last year.

The store also boasts the Umbru ‘Uplus’ line of home accessories – an exclusive that Marzouca said she had to bargain fiercely for – as well as several local pieces from the parish of Hanover through the Dolphin Head Trust’s bamboo project.

Creative use is also made of a range of other textures

and materials, including Indonesian mirrors framed with larva and stained flower petals.

An architect by profession and perfectionist by nature, Marzouca, a past student of Mount Alvernia High School, decided to open the store last year in response to the need she perceived existed among the public for tastefully selected household accessories.

She refused to open the store before she got everything just right, from the wrought iron railings crafted by Sandy McGann, a Canadian ironmonger, to the rice paper chandeliers by Miranda Sampson from Mandeville, to the stained floors reminiscent of the thatched huts of the Arawaks which inspired the store’s name.

“I had to wait for two months before I could get McGann to undertake the job, so I waited because I knew exactly what I wanted, a soft, sensual and fluid work that represented canes blowing and bamboo bending in the wind,” she told the Sunday Observer.

Early next year, Marzouca intends to open a café within the 8,000-ft complex to further enhance the appeal of the store. A competition for schools, featuring the history of the Bohio theme, is also in the works.