When Julia Bennati, co-owner of A Gal Named Cinda Lou in Uptown Westerville, discovered that the tenant who lived above her store was moving out, she thought the space might be useful for storage. She never intended to create the vibrant, colorful oasis that it is today.
She jumped on the opportunity and became more invested in the renovations than she anticipated. It took Bennati more than four months to repaint, strip the floor and tear out the worn-down cabinetry.
“The more time I spent up there, the more I fell in love with the space,” she says.
She kept all the original flooring except for the kitchen, which is actually covered in maps that are sealed onto the floor with coats of polyurethane. The color scheme is Bennati’s style: cool and warm tones parallel the color wheel and give the space a bright, retro feel.
Speaking of retro, the décor feels nostalgic and is filled with furniture and accessories akin to the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
“Most of the furniture is from the 1960s,” Bennati says. “Pictures, lamps, accessories and even cooking supplies are all from that era or a replica of the time period.”
It wasn’t Bennati’s original intent to put the place up as an Airbnb apartment, but she received so much encouragement from her family and friends that she began looking into how to do so.
“While redoing the space, I had friends come up and help me,” she says. “They often said, ‘It’s so neat up here!’ and ‘Can I spend the night sometime?’”
Bennati had nothing but positive experiences with Airbnbs in the past. One in particular stuck out in her mind when she was dreaming of putting her little Uptown apartment up for rent. She and her sister had once vacationed in a tiny house in Nashville, Tennessee. It was kept in the back yard of a big plot of land and the homeowners gave them a lantern to light the way when they strolled down the stone foothill in the dark. There were even free-range chickens wandering about.
“That’s why I thought our space would be great,” she says, “and I tried to make it as unique as possible.”
The apartment has welcomed guests from across the country, spanning from Florida to Maine to California. There was once a bodybuilder guest who was in town for the Arnold Sports Festival and even a visitor who came all the way from Germany.
One of the most memorable guests was a woman who grew up in Westerville and had moved to Costa Rica after she retired. The woman had recently gotten married and brought her husband back to her hometown to show him how beautiful Westerville is during Christmastime.
“We decorated the apartment and left Christmas cookies and hoped for snow,” Bennati says. “It did snow, and they had a wonderful time.”
So, the space originally thought to be for storage became a home for visitors from near and far. All it took was some elbow grease, a ton of paint, support from her family and Bennati’s vision.
Mallory Arnold is an editor. Feedback welcome at marnold@cityscenemediagroup.com.
