Juliet McDermott

April 30, 2025 was the day that Lisa Tran McKee closed on Brunswick’s home decor store Nest. It was also the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon—the same week her family escaped from Vietnam and eventually settled in Orange County, Calif. To Lisa, this was simply kismet. Hearing her story over eggs Benedict and coffee at the Broadway Deli, I’m not so sure.

The woman across the table is not merely an immigrant success story—the dream she jokingly calls the “American myth.” Instead, she’s a self-proclaimed “elf,” running a gift shop built around the belief that everyday generosity deserves a home. Whether consciously or not, Lisa has lived a life shaped by a simple instinct: wanting to “just do little things for people.”

It’s easy to picture six-year-old Lisa biking to the florist shop around the corner to buy 50-cent carnations for her friends. That instinct started early. It never really left. Her mother once sewed jeans in factories to keep the family afloat before opening a small Vietnamese restaurant, what Lisa describes as the immigrant instinct to do what you know best: feed people. Lisa followed a similarly determined path, taking night classes at California State University, Fullerton, while working full-time as a bank teller and earning a promotion to supervisor within three months. It’s the first of many moments that look like a coincidence but quietly reveal a pattern: using communication, community work and a willingness to figure things out as ways to care for people.

That pattern carried her through a career that makes even Lisa laugh when she calls it “crazy” and “not predictable.” A lifelong hockey fan, she became a public relations and marketing director for a minor league team in Albuquerque, N. M., later rising to chief of staff at the Staples Center and for the Los Angeles Kings. Eventually, her work pulled her east to Massachusetts, into public service as deputy director of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development under Governor Deval Patrick.

When her consulting firm was sold to a private equity firm, Lisa stayed an extra year to help her employees through the transition, knowing her own role would soon be terminated. Looking back, she jokes about the timing of what came next. The throughline, though, feels familiar: She keeps choosing people.

After her husband Scott’s parents retired to Bar Harbor, Maine, the McKees joined them during the Covid-19 lockdown. What began as a vacation rental quietly turned into house hunting in Brunswick. Despite living in Maine for only a few years, Lisa moves through town like a longtime local. During our breakfast, she casually drops insider tidbits about shifting shop ownership along Maine Street while fellow diners stop to say hello.

Becoming a small-town business owner was never part of the plan. But Nest quickly became the most visible expression of a lifelong instinct. She is shaping the shop into what she describes as “a place that is an escape from the chaos of the real world,” while wholeheartedly hoping for life itself to someday feel more like that.

Lisa sees the foundation left by Nest’s previous owners as a platform for storytelling. As she curates the shop, she balances idealism with practicality, adding women-owned, minority-owned and ethically-sourced products while making sure they are things people genuinely want to buy. One of the first additions was a skincare line developed by a University of Maine bioengineer using lobster shell regeneration that unexpectedly broadened Nest’s customer base to chefs and construction workers seeking relief for chafed hands. The ever-bustling store’s success feels inseparable from its owner, both growing from the same instinct to care for people.

The same instinct shapes how she builds her team. The closest Lisa comes to boasting is proudly announcing that nearly all of her staff are women or minorities—before laughing and correcting herself: “Dang it. 99 percent. My husband doesn’t count. He’s a white guy.” She retained the original staff and now employs Bowdoin students, bringing the energy of the College into the rhythm of the shop—including my roommate Juliet, who comes home with stories about the day’s customers and a highly coveted staff discount.

The people drawn to work at Nest only deepen its character. Product scouting is handled by a former head of the Harvard genetics center, turned watercolor artist and nonprofit chair. The store manager taught art for 20 years, worked at the journal Women’s Wear Daily and helped shut down a supermax prison through activism. The shop has quietly become what Lisa calls an “unofficial, unintentional hub for social justice and activism.”

That outward focus extends beyond the store. During her first month of ownership, Lisa sponsored the Brunswick Downtown Association’s Summer Art Walk. Supporting local artists and community organizations has become part of daily operations.

“We feel so lucky that we have this opportunity to own this shop,” she told me. “I came from nothing…. I know firsthand how important those programs are. I feel like that’s everyone’s responsibility—to help each other up.”

Even seated with her back to the diner window overlooking Maine Street, the town is clearly always on her mind. With a mock-stern twinkle in her eye, Lisa insists that one quote must make it into this story: “Successful main streets are critical to the happiness of the community.” She learned the lesson while helping revitalize Massachusetts main streets during the 2008 recession, and she still lives by it today. When a neighboring shop owner passed away suddenly, Lisa immediately offered her staff to help cover shifts.

Today, when customers walk through Nest, the most noticeable differences might be a pride decal on the window or Bruno Mars playing through the speakers. But whether you stop in for five minutes or lose an hour, you leave with the unmistakable energy of being inspired and inspiring others.

When I suggest Nest has come back to life, Lisa shakes her head.

“A new life,” she insists.