New Orleans Inn and Day Spa Owners Talk with SpaWire About Life After Losing Everything to Hurricane Katrina

'We started our lives together 14 years ago with $97.39 in coins to open our first bank account -- and look what we built in that time. ... We have yet to even grasp the extent and impact of our loss. It's a shock. It is more than we can mentally process at this point.'

(PRWEB) September 4, 2005 -- Andre West-Harrison and Keith West-Harrison are the owners of the Olde Victorian Inn, Miss Celie's Spa Orleans, and the VooBrew Coffee & Tea coffee house, all located in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Keith and Andre have long had an unbridled zest and enthusiasm for the spa and hospitality industry. That brio resulted in their being chosen as one of the group of entrepreneurs followed by AmericaOnline in 2004's The Startup" (keyword: Startup). AOL readers followed the highs and lows of the day spa world, through the eyes of its owners and operators, via Keith's online AOL diary, video interviews, and features published by AOL Time Warner and Entrepreneur Magazine.

Keith and Andre have been long-time members of the Spa Index Media network of day spas and hotel spas, inspired numerous positive reviews and thank you letters from our readers, and were our generous hosts for the 2004 New Orleans Spa Getaway Sweepstakes, in which Spa Index sent one lucky winner to the New Orleans Inn and Spa for a vacation.

"Once we were able to confirm Keith and Andre had successfully evacuated New Orleans ahead of Hurricane Katrina, we caught up with them in their hometown in Indiana, where they are doing their best to cope and recover from the disaster, and are already planning new futures" said Kristina Fitzhugh, Editor of Spa Index Media, and its spa industry news digest, SpaWire.

The SpaWire Interview of Keith and Andre West-Harrison:

SW: First, and most importantly, our entire organization is glad you are both safe and sound. Have you been able to check on your employees, and do you have any news how any or all of them fared?

WH: We are safe and with our 6 dogs and our cat. We know that our Operations Director, and one massage therapist, are both safe. Our cell phones don't work. We cannot get through to anyone on a land line. We really are worried about the rest of our employees.

SW: Who are your employees? Any messages we can relay out in the Internet world, for you?

WH: Stacie LMT -- call, us please. We need to know you got out of town.

Jana LMT -- we know you got out, but are you and your new husband safe?

Victor LMT -- did you get out?

Dianne Nails -- please tell us you left. Your house would be underwater now.

SW: When and how did you evacuate New Orleans?

WH: Sunday morning, August 28, at 7 a.m. We got up early to check the television. Reports said the storm's eye was going to come directly over our spa and home (the Inn). We decided we had to leave. The news said going East was better than going West. We grabbed our laptop computer and our fur-kids, and left the house by 10 a.m.

We grabbed only 3 changes of clothing and jumped into our small 4-door car. We had to stop at 3 gas stations before we found fuel. It then took us 4 hours to drive 45 miles through Mississippi. A mere 15 hour drive got us back to Evansville, Indiana, to stay with family.

SW: Where or with whom are you staying, now?

WH: We are with Andre's parents for now. We are living in the basement with our kids on an air mattress.

SW: Besides your family of pets, what were you able to take with you?

WH: Our iBook laptop, 1-pro size 15% glycolic cleanser, tooth brushes, 2 pairs of jeans, 6 T-shirts, 3 pair of shoes, dog food and our non-working cell phones. And $500.00.

SW: When did you open the Inn, Spa, and Coffee House?

WH: We bought the B&B as a fully operational business in 1998. We added the adjacent spa in 2002. We opened the coffeehouse nearby in 2004.

SW: What have you heard about your three buildings -- in the French Quarter?

WH: Nothing. Zip. We cannot find a working phone number, no drive by on CNN, no luck at all.

SW: Your lives as Innkeepers, Coffee Brewers, and Day Spa directors seem to be indefinitely on hold due to Hurricane Katrina, however, you've spoken in the past about franchising your successful day spa. Is that still feasible?

WH: Those three careers are over for good. We must reinvent ourselves, create new careers. We found franchising to be the hardest way to expand -- we have recently started another related career.

SW: In the past year, you've talked about relocating to Miami, and opening another day spa in a hotel. Are you concerned that Miami is frequently hard hit by Mother Nature, as well, and has this dampened your enthusiasm for creating a new Miami Hotel Spa?

WH: You got it. We won't live in Miami. We want to live back in the Midwest, and travel to do advanced training and consulting. In fact, our French Quarter building had been for sale while we looked at other career options and locations.

We are talking about looking for a new home somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee to set up as a home base.

SW: On a larger scale -- even before Hurricane Katrina -- you talked about acting as spa consultants, sharing the same formula which contributed the success of Miss Celie's Spa Orleans (incidentally, the most frequently reviewed reader favorite" spa on our SpaIndex.Com website). How do you plan to market your consulting services, and what services specifically do you plan on offering?

WH: We recently put the Inn up for sale and launched True Spa Consulting. Through that business we can help people with startup spas, help turn around faltering or failing spas, or just help improve profitability. Our new life will be driven by that new venture -- TrueSpaConsulting.Com.

With Miss Celie's Spa Orleans, we formulated a personal approach to the spa business that propelled us to the top -- we were the top-rated day spa in New Orleans. We can offer these same business plans, systems and trade secrets to other spas, helping them to create a spa as wonderful as ours was.

SW: Growing three businesses from the ground up is like raising children. It's one thing to start a new career, but how do you first cope with the tremendous loss?

WH: We have yet to even grasp the extent and impact of our loss. It's a shock. It is more than we can mentally process at this point. We lost all means of readily available income -- we have $500 in cash and only our web store and consulting leads to keep food on the table. Even access to our bank accounts is down.

SW: Your spa's website has a thriving online shop, marketing your private labeled spa products, and, your PURE INVENTIONS green tea elixir concentrates. I believe you also had a hand in a skincare line custom created for the African American population, and a recent collaboration with Hi-Fi Sky Music. Are you able to keep these aspects of your business in operation? Do you want to? And will you wholesale to other spas?

WH: Yes, yes, and yes. We have some wonderful products in the works: Brown Skin is our ethnic skin and body care line, and, we just finished formulating a men's line called "Male Ego."
We do wholesale our product lines, our green tea extracts, and our spa music. All of this can be found divided between our two websites, www.spaorleans.com and www.truespaconsulting.com.

SW: Fortunately you were absent for the landing of the Hurricane itself. We know the entire post-hurricane experience has been surreal and exhausting. Prior to evacuating, however, was there any one moment that was especially memorable, difficult, or poignant?

WH: Our most difficult moment was when we took five minutes to take down our spa sign. The sign was painted with Keith's own hands. We had to take our sign down, and lay it inside the spa, lock the doors -- both interior and the front door -- climb into a car and leave -- knowing it may be the last time we saw our home. Our spa, our home, our life.

SW: Very often, people fantasize about a Life Do Over." You successfully operated your Inn, Spa, and Coffee House for quite a long time. Mother Nature has abruptly changed your future. While spa consulting may be in your immediate future, any thoughts as to a completely new adventure, outside the spa industry?

WH: Motivational speaking and writing books. We want to help other people excel. We started our lives together 14 years ago with $97.39 in coins to open our first bank account -- and look what we built in that time. Other people can accomplish as much, and we want to help them try.

SW: How can our spa community, and hopefully your employees, contact you?

Visit us on our webs:
www.SpaOrleans.com
and
www.TrueSpaConsulting.com

Or telephone us:
812-430-0999
812-430-0550

Or write us:

For SpaWire ... Kristina J. Fitzhugh, Editor, Spa Index Media, LLC. Reprint permission may be obtained by visiting SpaWire.com and reading the online version of the interview, with graphics.

About Spa Index Media, LLC:
Spa Index Media LLC is based in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, and operates three websites for the international spa, salon and wellness industry.

SpaIndex.Com is a comprehensive guide to day spas and spa resorts in 39 countries, and profiles spa specials, cuisine, and lifestyle tips. http://www.SpaIndex.Com

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Spa Index Media, LLC is a socially responsible company and frequently targets its efforts to charitable endeavors in the wellness community.

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