Within Aida Faria’s first five years of owning Enchanted Grove in downtown Willoughby, Spencer Homage recalls walking through its doors when he was 7 years old.
Now, the Willoughby native is filling Faria’s shoes as the new owner of the metaphysical, spiritual gift store that has been in business since 1998 at 4122 Erie St.
Homage describes the business as a spiritual center for learning in addition to a gift shop that sells soaps, scented candles, tapestries, items for walls, wind chimes and jewelry.
Also sold in the store are stained glass and items from local artists that are centered around things that connect people to the universe and to the world, Homage said.
“We’re not specific to any one faith,” he said. “We house a wide range of diverse topics and energies.”
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It was last year when Faria began to talk about retirement, Homage said.
“I said if you’re going to step down, who’s going to take the store over?” he said. “She was like, ‘I’m putting it up for sale, so make me an offer.’ I was like I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll give it a whirl, so that’s exactly what I did. I reached out to the people she was in contact with.”
Throughout the transition process, Homage learned that he and Faria are good at the magic and essence of the store, but they are not “calculator people.”
“She had no idea how to sell a business and I had no idea how to buy a business, so it was a strange learning experience for both of us,” Homage said. “She had gotten into contact with a guy who managed the whole sale and he pointed me in the right direction. It took 10 months. It was a long journey and it was stressful, but through the whole time that we were attempting to make the business acquisition happen, I was teaching classes in the store weekly. I was able to energetically connect with the store.”
Prior to the transition, Homage would put prayers out for everything to go smoothly.
“She (Faria) put out a lot of energy as well and then everything, much to our surprise, worked out just fine,” he said. “Early March is when we did the transition.”
After stumbling into the Enchanted Grove, Homage was introduced to spirituality and metaphysics, which is the study of energy, nature and how it interacts with people. It was from that point on that he fell in love with everything he was coming into contact with.
“From there, I became an avid reader and student of everything involved in what we do here — spirituality, goddess religion, energy work, spirit communication with the other side and crystal healing,” Homage said. “That became my big focus later on. I became pretty much obsessed with everything that the store was centered around.”
Over the years, Homage became good friends with Faria.
“I became quite close with her over the years as a student of the store and as a consistent customer. She and I became spiritually involved. We would do different circles for moons and things like that over the years.”
For Homage, this is not his first time in retail as he has managed other stores.
“I worked for Gap, Inc. for 10 years and now, I have had experience in other retails since I left them,” he said. “I kind of had a lot of foundational knowledge on how retail works, so that’s helped, but working for a company running a store is a lot different than owning the four walls. There’s been a humongous learning curve.”
Faria has helped Homage with a lot through the first couple weeks of owning the business.
“We transferred everything over within six hours the next day after the papers were signed,” he said. “The day after that, there was nothing left to do except learn. Her (Faria) and her husband both helped me a lot with the boring stuff of owning a small business. As a civilian, you have no idea what you’re doing. It only needs to be challenging once is what I’ve come to accept in my heart.”
Despite the challenge, there’s been a lot of reward in owning a small business, Homage said.
Business thus far this summer has been wonderful, Homage said.
“We have a psychic reader seven days a week, so that brings traffic in all day long and people usually shop while they’re in here getting readings,” he said. “We have a great community of loyal people who always are in here buying things they always need whether it’s incense candles, rocks, books and stuff like that. We have a consistent traffic flow.”
Homage said Enchanted Grove serves a variable demographic, but there is a large surge of young people finding interest in metaphysics, as well as spiritual topics currently.
“The thing that the store offers that’s different is sacred space. We maintain a sacred energy for patrons to shop and feel like everything’s blessed. We take prayer requests on the goddess alter that’s in the store, so there’s a lot of people’s love, pain and wishes that come through our store.”
Homage observed that downtown Willoughby is doing a lot to continue its growth.
“I’ve lived in Willoughby since I was born,” he said. “I graduated from South High. If I sit back and look at everything that’s going on, there’s a lot of growth happening.”
Enchanted Grove’s current hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.