New Long Grove business owner has family ties to downtown

In the 1950s, Kristine Knutson's grandmother, Josephine Kempner, owned The Village Green antique and tea shop in downtown Long Grove.

Earlier this summer, Knutson added to her family's Long Grove legacy when she opened an expansion of her business, How Impressive, across the street from what once was her grandmother's shop.

Knutson's move to 309 Old McHenry Road comes about 10 years after she first opened her personalized stationery and gift shop in Libertyville.

For three years prior to that, customers ordered Knutson's stationery from her home while she served wine around her dining room table.

The new Long Grove location will feature personalized stationery and gifts, bamboo sweaters that can be monogrammed and jewelry. Unique to the new store, Knutson will stock Long Grove snow globe ornaments and a wine stopper that depicts the village's covered bridge. And with the opening of the Long Grove location, Knutson invested in a new machine so she can do logos in-house. Residents have been "buzzing" about How Impressive and other new businesses - most recently a brewery - that are setting up shop in downtown Long Grove, said Village President Angie Underwood.

The Long Grove How Impressive location is double the size of Knutson's Libertyville shop. With an already-established customer base in Libertyville, Knutson says she hopes to draw those people to downtown Long Grove. Knutson's father attended a private event she recently hosted in the new Long Grove shop. She says it was great to see him there, across the street from the shop his mother once owned.

The village is excited to welcome a new business with ties to the downtown's history.

"It's great when someone has a legacy in town," Underwood said. Knutson's grandmother would travel from Lake Forest to Long Grove on dirt roads to get to the Village Green.

"To think that I'm right there where she was, is exciting," Knutson said.