The “Inside Scoop” on….
We are having a party on September 6th!
Why are we celebrating?!! We have been in business for 14 years as of 9-11-2004, and we have been in our building in the Arts District on Main Street for 7 years!
We closed in July and our first day of business was September 1st, 2004 – So there is much to celebrate!
We are piggybacking all the amazing events that are happening in the Arts District on September 6th. The mayor will light up the festoon lights (to mark the official finish of the one way couplet), and the new sculpture called Radial Symmetry will be unveiled.
Main Street has changed SO MUCH since we moved here..
Here’s our story!… We had a crazy romantic idea to work together and have a family business.. Work with your spouse, everyday?!! Yes, that alone is a bit crazy..lol
Originally, we opened as a franchise partner of “Newport Furnishings” on 9-11-2004 and two years in, our partner robbed us and vanished! NOT COOL!… but as Las Vegans do, we reinvented ourselves as Insidestyle and made a commitment to not let that &*(*&^ deter us!
And it only made us stronger..
A few years later, we entered a recession.. Again, we not only survived, but we thrived..
We reinvented ourselves and our plan. When we first opened as the franchise partner, we focused more on furniture sales. This time, we decided to focus more on Jill’s talent as an interior designer, so the business model changed to design first, furniture second.
After renting offices for 7 years, we had a dream to have own our place even though we weren’t certain HOW to make this happen. . Our lease was coming up for renewal and Marc had a “wild hair idea.” I really thought he was nuts when he suggested we go look “downtown in the Arts District.” ( It was still pretty “rough” at that stage and I was worried our clients would’t want to come here!)
As luck would have it, we spotted a GREAT building that was extremely “crunchy” inside and out, but the “bones” were amazing..
From the outside, it didn’t look like much… but the inside!!!!! We fell in love.
However, the owners wanted an extremely quick closing and it didn’t leave us enough time to get an inspection which we thought important for a building that was built in 1945! Here is a photo of what it looked like back then!
This building had many “lives” before we happened upon it! First, it was Las Vegas Electric company.. (By the way they are still in business and Marc took the photo below just yesterday!)
It was also the Metropolitan Community Church as seen here in this photo.
And, just before we bought it , it was used a headquarters for a party planner/special event company and our entire space (6,000 square feet of it) had previously been used to store lots of large scale party decorations from the days when the Casinos really put on some amazing theme parties.
With sad faces… We signed another year’s lease on Valley View and continued to dream of a different future.. I literally cried..
At the end of the year, our lease was up for renewal again, and a local realtor reached out to Marc to share a downtown property he thought we would like. The building he suggested wasn’t a “fit” but Marc suggested to visit 1119 South Main again and Lo and Behold! “Our Building” as we had called it all year… was for sale again!
This time we were NOT going to let it pass us by.. with enthusiastic support from “Bunya” Marc’s Mom, (She was able to purchase some strategic real estate on a waitress’s wages and always inspired us…) We “worked it out” and were able to purchase 1119 South Main Street.
Yayyyyy!!! but Ohhhhhh… now we need to renovate and FAST! Adding to our excitement and anxiety was the fact we had never renovated a commercial building before and it needed ALOT OF WORK! New Everything was needed including Air Conditioning!! And, the initial “discussions” on what Marc and I wanted to do differently were very , shall we say, “Passionate!” LOL
Here are a few “BEFORE” photos..
So we dove in and made it happen! Sometimes, not having a long lead time to make decisions is a good thing! Let the renovations begin!!
Our Grand Opening was so joyful and we were so grateful that our community really “showed us the LOVE” that night..
We made our short deadline and the rest shall we say is “Happy History!”
We will continue to see possibilities where they may not be obvious and to Create Beauty!.. in our physical and emotional world…
Cheers to Creation and “Crazy Ideas!!”
