A Pilates Instructor and a Meditation Facilitator walk into a bar…

Literally. We wish the start of the Holistic House journey didn’t sound like the start of a bad joke, but alas… Here we are!

Before we begin, we should probably introduce ourselves. We’re Bethan Gray and Banu Harrison, and we are the co-founders of Holistic House Skipton. The ‘business worms’ of Holistic House, as autocorrect rather aptly recently corrected ‘business women’ to…

Anyway, we digress. You’re not here to hear about worms or lack thereof! You’re here to hear about how two super serious business women had a very serious business meeting drinking very serious coffee and there was absolutely no gin involved.

We’re afraid to say, however, this wasn’t the case.

Having worked together in a previous wellbeing setting, we never lost touch after we both independently left. Bethan was working in an Events Management role, having previously worked as a Retreat, Sales & Events Manager when Banu, a local Pilates Instructor, sent a seemingly innocent Watsapp message; “imagine if we went in on a place together! How amazing would that be!”.

This was the wrong message to send Bethan, who had, at that time, been scouring RightBiz for local commercial properties to let.

“You’ll never guess what… I was just thinking the same thing. Shall we do it?!”

“Maybe we should just go for a drink and have a chat… a chat can’t be any harm”

…

Cue 3 glasses later of The Cock & Bottle’s finest gin, and we had ourselves a business plan. A very loose business plan… But a business plan nonetheless.

We knew instantly what we wanted to create. A space, in the centre of Skipton, that we could a) go in together on the rent and bills for, and b) still maintain our own businesses while providing support to one another, too.

As Banu wanted to expand on her already flourishing home Pilates business, The Pilates Room, and Bethan wanted to build on her dream holistic retail space with classes and retreats, Roots Of Tolos, the vision came to light almost instantly. We would search for a central location with footfall that would provide accessibility to both of our businesses to the local community.

The next step (once it was clear that we were now invested!) was to find the right space. We viewed a lovely location which was just that… lovely… but we didn’t feel it. Every positive came with a negative. We both felt in our guts that it wasn’t the right place for us, so we agreed to wait for the perfect space, and trust that it would come up.

Incredibly we didn’t have to wait long, as only a week or so later a beautiful end-of-terrace property came on the market. 18 Otley Street. Both of us had actually independently enquired into this building before we had decided on ‘going it together’, but both had presumed it to be out of reach at that time. We booked in a date with the estate agent and arranged a viewing.

As we entered the building in the middle of a beautiful Spring day, we both fell instantly in love. As soon as we entered, we commented on the calming energy we both felt… and this feeling of peace only deepened as we moved higher up the building.

It was as if the building was telling us exactly what it was meant to be - as if it was made for us. As we walked higher up, first coming into the retail space on the ground floor, then up into a large bare room with beautiful panels on the walls and fresh wood-effect flooring, we could see instantly the calming studio space that this room was meant to be.

What we hadn’t realised was that there was a whole other floor above! A hidden third floor already complete with two smaller rooms - one with beautiful old large windows and one cosy little windowless nook. We straight away agreed that these rooms would be ideal for treatments as an additional offering. Intimate, cosy and unique.

As we stood in the building, we both squealed and, we’re not ashamed to say, may have shed a little tear. This building was meant to be a space of healing. It was meant to be ours, and it was meant to be ‘Holistic House’ - a home from home, in the centre of Skipton, for anyone and everyone to enter and feel welcome and to have autonomy over their own health and happiness.

We weren’t sure exactly how it was all going to pan out just then, but we had a feeling, and an intuitive knowing that this was a special place, and that Holistic House would tell us in it’s own time exactly how it was meant to be.

….And so, 6 months and a lot of blood, sweat and tears later, here we are. Holistic House Skipton. A hidden gem nestled in the heart of Skipton - our hometown - full to the brim every single day of classes, workshops, events, treatments, holistic products, retreats and a whooooole lot of love and community!

It’s a pretty special place, and we hope someday, if you haven’t done already, you’ll get the chance to pop by and say hello!

Lots of love,

Bethan & Banu x