Gift shop owner repaid for passion to help

A small gift shop in Reno survived a devastating fire and three burglaries by giving customers choices they will not find elsewhere and by garnering community support and a loyal following.

Inside a small, white house on the corner of South Wells Avenue and Crampton Street, Pepper Tree Southwest Gifts sells an ever-changing variety of products.

Some are made locally, while others arrive from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Native American reservations, and small Mexican villages.

Visitors to the store immediately see and hear a little water fountain that utilizes three ceramic pots.

They look up at more than 60 ceramic crucifixes displayed on the walls, then cruise over to an eye-catching arrangement of hot sauces.

A closer inspection of the hot sauces reveals some interesting verbiage on the labels.

One 26-ounce bottle reads "Habanero Bloody Mary from Hell Beyond Hot." Another proclaims "Fire Water Warning: Use Extreme Caution ...

This is the Hottest Sauce Known to Man." The store's founder and owner, Rose Ann Capriotti, started the Pepper Tree 13 years ago in the Hillcrest Shopping Center, then relocated the store to its present site.

The red-haired, bilingual Capriotti was born in Sonora, Mexico, came to the United States as a baby and eventually became a social worker for 20 years including stints as a juvenile probation officer.

She said she started the store because she thought it would be a good "financial foundation to fund my passion for helping people." About 60 percent of the products in the store are made by local people in need who happen to be skilled craftsmen and craftswomen.Twenty to 25 crafters typically are on contract to Capriotti throughout the year.

"There's a one-armed man in his 70s who makes furniture for me," she said, "and I have a deaf senior lady who makes greeting cards."

Other store items made locally include welded hat racks, "horseshoe" furniture, gourds, hand-made soaps and artificial flower arrangements.

A local weaver provides the store with pine-needle baskets.

Occasionally, Capriotti gives odd jobs to street people.

On any given day, the Pepper Tree inventory can also include ceramic cookie jars, incense, candles, essential fragrance oils, Native American drums and upscale Navajo jewelry.

Capriotti explained that her customers are all ages and nationalities and that includes neighborhood kids who buy small gifts for their friends and parents.

About three years ago, the Pepper Tree almost died.

At about 5:15 p.m.

on a workday, a sudden fire swept through the small store, incinerating the entire inventory and almost destroying the structure before firefighters arrived.

Capriotti said she saw a flash followed by rapidly spreading flames and smoke.

She was slightly burned but managed to escape.

The Reno Fire Department theorized that a faulty lamp caused the fire.

The loss was estimated at $80,000 to $90,000.

The building's owners had sufficient insurance to pay for most of the structural repairs, Capriotti said.

She lauded her crafters for helping her to reopen the Pepper Tree.

"None of the crafters wanted to be compensated for their destroyed merchandise," she said, somewhat wistfully, "And if it hadn't been for my crafters making new products to sell in my store, I would not have made it."

Some building contractors had even volunteered to repair the Pepper Tree for free, Capriotti added, and several people volunteered to help with the clean-up.

There have been other setbacks.

Her store has been burglarized three times, resulting in heavy loss of merchandise.

After an alarm system was installed a couple of years ago, burglaries stopped.

Capriotti credits her determination, long hours of hard work, community support and keeping abreast of customers' needs for the store's success.

She attends Las Vegas and Phoenix gift-item trade shows, reads trade journals and scans interior decorating magazines to get ideas and stay informed.

"I have to stay awake," she said metaphorically, "I can't fall asleep."

Advertising has helped her business both in generalinterest newspapers and in local Hispanic newspapers.

What about the future? Capriotti is thinking about the feasibility of opening a second store.

Expanding the present Pepper Tree is near impossible because of limited space.

Maybe she will expand her line of hot sauces.