How a Halloween obsession became a business

Spoox owner Landrie Miller poses with her hearse outside her store, Spoox Boutique, in South Salt Lake. | Lee Benson, Deseret News

SOUTH SALT LAKE — A skull disguised as a toilet brush is what launched it.

Ever since their daughter Eva was born, Landrie Miller and her husband Shane, who runs a landscaping company, had been looking for another small business they could start so Landrie wouldn’t have to leave the baby when she went to work.

They thought about the usuals. A restaurant, maybe, or some sort of store.

Lee Benson, Deseret News

Landrie Miller, owner of Spoox Boutique, holds the skull toilet brush that inspired her and her husband, Shane, to start their business.

But then one day Landrie was shopping around for a decoration for her bathroom. She wanted something Halloween-themed, but couldn’t find any local stores that specialized in that kind of thing. Finally, she went online and found just what she was looking for: the skull/toilet brush combo.

It was like someone turned on a giant black lightbulb.

What if they opened a shop that specialized in just such little horrors?

Within weeks, they found a vacant barber shop on State Street, painted over the teal and coral walls with gray-black paint, and on April Fools Day opened Spoox, their unique boutique where “Halloween is not a holiday … it’s a lifestyle.” They hoped the place was haunted.

* * *

Understand, the Millers’ interest in Halloween was no idle obsession.

Growing up, they’d each been fascinated by anything involving bones, bats, witches, boiling cauldrons, coffins, spiders, vampires, ghouls, goblins, headless horsemen, hexes, monsters, clocks that run backward, skeletons, capes, wooden stakes, and so forth.

And then they met each other and found someone to help elevate their infatuation to a new level entirely.

How bad was it? Their wedding provides a clue. They held the ceremony and reception at the Murray Theater, which they decorated in early Transylvania. She was a countess dressed in red and black. He was a count with vampire fangs. They were married by the grim reaper. On Nov. 2, The Day of the Dead.

The marquee out front said “Love at first bite.”

That’s how bad.

At their home they turned their backyard into a haunted house in October and invited everyone in the neighborhood to come. Inside their house, their decor trended toward the weird and the odd, a la Landrie’s search for a toilet brush tucked behind a human skull. Landrie and Shane were not mere Halloween posers. They indeed did the holiday year round.

* * *

People told them they thought they were nuts.

Not for decorating their house in Halloween. But for thinking a business could survive with a Halloween theme year-round. They might do well in October, but what about the other 11 months?

Did they think it was mere coincidence that there were no such Halloween specialty stores in the entire Salt Lake Valley, let alone state?

“We were told lots of times that what we were doing was crazy,” says Landrie. “That a store like this wouldn’t last, especially in Salt Lake. That people here weren’t that into Halloween.”

That was seven and a half years ago.

Every week, Tuesday through Saturday — and Monday through Saturday during October — Landrie parks her white hearse out front (Shane has one that matches), opens the Spoox front door at 11 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. Eva, who is now 8, joins her mother after school and does her homework on the couch behind the counter.

Lee Benson, Deseret News

A snake in a jar is displayed among items for sale at Spoox Boutique in South Salt Lake.

Their “little shop of horrors” is filled with “stuff to squirm over” that is hard to find elsewhere. Local artists provide jewelry, dolls, prints and paintings, custom-made purses, and, for a mere $600, a coffee table in the shape of a coffin. Animal bones, Landrie points out, are perennially consistent sellers, from otters, squirrels, turtles, rabbits, cats, skunks, raccoons, you name it. Then there are jars filled with snakes, lamb fetuses and frogs in embalming fluid. The perfect bookshelf end pieces.

Landrie says people have spotted the store’s hoodies and T-shirts, emblazoned with the Spoox motto, “Halloween is not a holiday … it’s a lifestyle,” in places all around the world.

“It’s worked out,” says Spoox’s proud owner as she takes a human skull down off a shelf, reaches behind and pulls out a toilet brush.

“People here are that into Halloween,” she smiles. “Sometimes I think they like it as much as Christmas.”

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2WhJ4ry