My dad is an entrepreneur and small business owner himself, so between my upbringing and this first real-world career experience, it’s no wonder I have such a strong passion for supporting local. After a number of years helping to grow the product and lead the account team in Austin, I took a leap and moved to San Francisco to pivot into a role at an experiential marketing agency.

I worked to produce trade shows and events across the country, designing strategic partnerships on behalf of Fortune500 brands to help them best reach and engage with their target consumer. I made a personal move to Denver in late 2017, where I now live with my fiancé, Stepen, and our pup, Cooper. After years of dreaming, I founded The Sursy in 2018.

In 2013, we bought an old historic home, which was built in 1895. The walls were all painted the same shade of “greige” – it was really a blank slate. I looked around at all the bare walls of our home and thought, “There are so many good spots for wallpaper.” I initially sourced my wallpaper from a local company on Santa Fe, but by the time I was ready to paper my fourth room, the company had shuttered their doors.

I saw an opportunity. I told my husband I was going to launch an independent wallpaper boutique; the only catch was that it was going to operate out of our home, specifically our dining room! I didn’t have any capital investment – and quite frankly, I wasn’t sure if market in Denver would support this enterprise. I opened up my doors in 2016 with just a handful of companies on board.

Really, sometimes you “win” simply because you stuck it out the longest; if you keep an eye on the endgame and stay resourceful while being willing to put in the work, it’s crazy what you can achieve. Also, especially early on in the entrepreneurship journey, a bit of naivety towards all that could go wrong helps keep discouragement at bay. You just don’t know what you don’t know, and I like to remember that can be an asset.

That said, I am known to take a spontaneous off-the-grid road trip or day off. On days where I am feeling particularly “not in creative flow,” I will lean into that and, even if it’s in the middle of the traditional work week, I will pause to go on a long walk, listen to a podcast, call my family and friends to chat, or do something crafty to clear my brain. These mental health days are super important and perhaps my approach to balancing it all, because, in my case, work and life are so blurred…and I like it that way.

It was people renting out a spare bedroom in their home or garage apartment with no thought towards any level of hospitality or design or experience. It was obvious to me after my first Airbnb booking in the “aughts and tens” era that there was an opportunity to fuse the quality of name brand hotels with the authenticity of a home share in a way that was design-led and locally-focused.

That’s the fun of traveling and staying in new places; you get to see and experience things in a new way from someone else’s perspective. A home has a sense of place through the textiles, decor, and furnishings used throughout the space — even scents and tchotchkes throughout — all which reflect and are unique to the owner. Design to me — whether for a home or for a hospitality destination — has the ability to form a very neat relationship between people and spatial settings.

The staycation trend has been on the up and up for years. Remote work had become commonplace at companies large and small even before COVID hit, so creating a space that feels welcoming for one night or thirty — or even for an hour or an evening — feels appropriate and dare I say: needed.

I think the pandemic, even with the sh*tstorm it has brought to the hospitality industry in particular, will wind up being a time to learn and thrive from. It brings people back to the basics, reinvesting in their local communities in a way that elevates and supports those around us. It may sound lofty, but I believe people will gather again, and my hope is that The Sursy becomes a destination that meets people where they are and stays rooted in community through the pandemic and for all the years ahead.

A sursy is a southern slang term for a souvenir, so the biggest benefit of our retail-meets-hospitality model for artists, makers, and creatives is that we’re providing a space where guests can experience a “living gallery” of their work; we’re bringing the old-school gift shop to the customer in an innovative way that feels *buzzword!* authentic and allows for an emotion and memory to be tied to inanimate objects. We create shoppable spaces that cultivate brand loyalty and encourage shopping small and local, which is a win on many levels: a win for us, a win for our maker partners, a win for the guests, and a win for the local community, its people, and its economy.