Soul House Key West

BY MAGGIE OLIVE KLEIN

KONKLIFE STAFF WRITER

Located at 600 Frances Street in Old Town Key West, Soul House of Key West is the perfect versatile and welcoming store that every person can enjoy! This shop has everything from men and women’s apparel, and accessories, to gifts, furniture and home decor.

The warm and inviting store, whose tagline is “Love the Life You Live”, is run by owners Oakleigh Waits and Sue Beale. Prior to the launch of Soul House, Waits and Beale had other careers that they were pursuing. Waits owned Isle Style, a salon spa & boutique in downtown Key West for 14 years. After working for 20 years, she decided to revisit an old love— her original career in retail. Waits came to realize that Key West didn’t have many shops that offered a wide variety of merchandise, so she came up with the idea of a comprehensive, lifestyle store, offering a mixture of items for men and women. 

Once she came up with the idea for Soul House, a store that offers a range of items from jewelry to home goods, Waits was quickly joined by her previous salon client, Sue Beale. They both agreed that it was time for them to “rewrite their stories”, in a way, and join forces to create Soul House. The two took great pleasure in talking about their potential endeavor and considering the possibilities that their new store could ultimately offer.

Waits and Beale are happy to say that their store has taken off and been very well received by the community! The two describe the store as, “having an environment that feels comfortable, has a fun vibe, is progressive and organic, yet modern and current. All while being accessible to the average person that just wants to come and enjoy themselves and have that retail moment without breaking the bank. We want to bring the fun of shopping to every person in many different ways.” The store has a variety of merchandise, and the environment is approachable, allowing customers to purchase items that suit their specific desires. Waits and Beale aim to cultivate a welcoming atmosphere, one in which people can not only enter the space to shop, but also enjoy their experience. Whether it be running into friends while shopping, creating relationships with the store owners, or experiencing the pure joy of finding the perfect item, any shopper is guaranteed to leave satisfied. The place pays homage to the original corner shop, your neighborhood family store! 

Moving forward, the business owners’ goal is to also create online shopping for Soul House, but they haven’t had the chance to yet because of how successful the store has been! Pretty great problem to have! In addition, they are looking to grow the company— to find the right team members to come on board and continue to develop various aspects of their business, something that requires the right people to gravitate in their direction, organically. This is only the beginning for the growing and budding business, so congratulations to you, Waits and Beale! 

Soul House is located at 600 Frances Street, and is open Tuesday-Saturday, from 10AM-6PM. Their website is soulhousekeywest.com, and their socials, Instagram and Facebook, are soulhousekeywest. Happy Shopping!

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