Things are stirring at the Wildcat Mansion carriage house at 4849 Route 322 in Franklin.
Mangatas Muse, which opened last April in a room next to Impel Pilates in downtown Franklin, has moved into one end of the carriage house building under the new moniker of Mangatas Muse and the Magic Cottage.
Business owner Wendy Mooney-Smith continues to offer sound healing services and Reiki in the new space, as well as crystal healing that she also started to offer last year.
She offers both individual and group sound healing sessions, including group children’s sessions.
Mooney-Smith also offers crystals for healing since “crystals have vibrations, and different colors align with different modalities,” she said.
She has begun making and selling crystal jewelry in her shop, as well.
When the business opened last April, Mooney-Smith said her goal was to help people who had anxiety and stress, especially recovering addicts and cancer patients.
Going forward, “I’m looking to work with addiction and cancer centers,” she said.
Other newer offerings at her business include mandalas and mandala-painting classes, which Mooney-Smith said are a type of meditation, as well as herbs, and incense sticks and candles that she makes herself.
She also offers rune readings.
“And I still do group sound sessions at Impel once a week,” she said.
Carriage House Shoppes
Another business in the Wildcat building has been up and running somewhat longer.
The Carriage House Shoppes opened last December, offering antiques, jewelry and art.
Judy Irwin, who is mainly running the shop at the moment but said others will help, said the shop is “kind of a hobby” for her.
Until last October, her wares had been located in Diane’s Linen and Yarn Shoppe in downtown Franklin, which closed in early January when owner Diane Laemmer retired.
For 12 years until 1993, Irwin, who was born and raised in the local area, ran the Baker auction hall in Cooperstown, and she’s been in the antiquing business for 48 years, she said.
When she retired from running the auction hall, she got her registered nurse license and became an in-house nurse for Venango County, but she still had three big sheds full of antiques, she said.
“This inventory comes from a lifetime of auctions,” said Jon Bernstein, owner of the Wildcat mansion and former carriage house building, of Irwin’s items. “All of her amazing treasures that needed a home.”
Irwin had had a gift shop in the main mansion until the Carriage House Shoppes opened, at which point she moved the mansion inventory to the carriage house, Bernstein said.
Irwin said business has been brisk since the shop opened.
“We get a lot of drive-by visitors….a lot of out-of-towners,” she said.
