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I DROVE NORTH from San Francisco on a gray winter morning. The sky was hanging low as the road curved inland through a redwood grove. Despite the cold, I rolled my window down long enough to take in a few breaths of the scent: eucalyptus and rich, loamy soil. A coyote meandered across the road, climbing up onto an embankment to watch the car I was driving — the only car on the road — pass by.

In December 2020, one of them changed. Monk Estate, a jewel box of a shop, opened its doors. Its owner, Lazuli Whitt, is a Point Reyes native whose family moved to the area in the early ’70s. Point Reyes was a ranching and dairy town back then, and Whitt’s father was the town doctor. Whitt left for college and made a return to the area when her own children were young, to give them the same benefits she experienced of growing up in a close-knit community near family.

Perhaps unusual for a shopkeeper, Whitt is a criminal defense lawyer — Monk Estate started as a side project. In the spring of 2018, she began going to London to source antique jewelry, selling it at pop-ups in several boutiques in New York and Los Angeles. The pop-ups were a success. The pandemic then presented her with an unexpected opportunity to pursue a brick-and-mortar space for the business. When some of the shopkeepers who had been in Point Reyes Station for decades decided to retire, several storefronts became available, including one she’d been eyeing for more than a decade.

Opening a store in the midst of the pandemic was easier than one might imagine, at least in Point Reyes. “It wasn’t hard, actually,” Whitt tells me, “at least not here. Because people couldn’t travel, the destination, which was already popular, became even more so. All the people coming from San Francisco were happy to shop in person in a small store, and just to be out of the city.”

The store is housed in a white one-story building, set back from the road by dark gravel and native landscaping. Its only branding is a discreet golden sign with a serpent on it. The space once housed an artist studio and gallery, and the interior still has an industrial feel. The wares inside — striped Moroccan caftans, hand-dipped beeswax candles, a selection of cookbooks — are as tightly curated as an art exhibition.

But growth is not really the point, says Whitt. She is excited to take buying trips again to Paris, where she sources estate pieces. And she is retiring from her 20-year career as an attorney, while looking forward to focusing on the shop full-time. When speaking to her, one gets the sense that the endeavor has unfolded organically. Like the drive up from San Francisco, the future of this enterprise is unfurling slowly, with Whitt in no hurry to get anywhere in particular. She is enjoying the winding ride — and, of course, curating a remarkable collection of mementos encountered along the way.