Today we’d like to introduce you to Lori.
Hi Lori, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
We met 8 years ago while working as massage therapists for a luxury spa in California. The original concept for Bungalow 7 Wellness Collection was to create a space where our guests could spend the day and receive a complete suite of wellness services that would literally leave them transformed when they went home. We planned to partner with other wellness professionals to provide a collection of 7 signature therapies that weren’t being offered everywhere else and that would be truly transformational. Then the pandemic hit and transformed everybody’s life for a few years. During that time, Troya moved her family to Austin, and Texas opened for business before California, we decided to open our business in Austin.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road has definitely not been smooth! We originally opened for business in North Austin, in the Steiner Ranch area. We met someone who had a property with several small businesses operating out of corrugated buildings she had placed on her property. We rented one of those empty buildings and spent a lot of time and money building out the space to fit our needs. We made the mistake of only doing a one year lease. At the end of our lease, the owner (who had been telling us how much she liked how we had built the space out) decided she wanted to open a business in our space and declined to renew our lease forcing us to move and restart somewhere else. Since Troya lives in South Austin, we decided to re-open there. While we were looking for a space, a doctor who had a space in the facility we were looking at approached us to sublease some of her space, which we did. Unfortunately, she didn’t tell us that her business was failing. She ended up declaring bankruptcy, closing her business, and running off with our rental deposit. Serendipitously, we met the person who owns the property we are currently renting around the same time and we have been happily ensconced at The Winfield Inn, a beautiful wedding venue in the city of Kyle, ever since. The Winfield Inn is a gorgeous, peaceful, secluded property with a 200 year old house and 200 year old oak trees. It is a perfect setting for a wellness business. We feel so blessed to be there, and the Kyle community has been welcoming and supportive and more and more people are finding us, and we are thankful.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are a wellness business that currently provides life coaching, wellness retreats (women’s, men’s and couples), Reiki, sound baths (floating and otherwise), yoga, and massage services. During the coming year we will be focusing on our life coaching and wellness retreat offerings and we are currently renovating our website to reflect that change, so keep revisiting us if you don’t see something that we have mentioned here on the website immediately. Doing a complete revamp is a lot more involved than we knew. Our most recent retreat is in March in Tulum, Mexico. We are really looking forward to it. It has always been our goal to create an impactful wellness community that is welcoming and nurturing. We are very proud that we are on our way to doing just that. Our long term dream and goal is to purchase our own property and to set up a wellness resort that offers services that provide meaningful and lasting benefit to everyone who walks through our doors. Wellness shouldn’t be a luxury.
Any big plans?
Our long term dream and goal is to purchase our own property and to set up a wellness resort that offers services that provide meaningful and lasting benefit to everyone who walks through our doors. Wellness shouldn’t be a luxury. We have recently had the opportunity to become involved with the foster youth community, a relationship we are looking forward to sustaining and building. We are also looking forward to creating collaboration that connect the growing use of alternative wellness practices in the mainstream medical community with the services we provide.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://B7wc.com
