Today we’d like to introduce you to Kate Walton and Steph Scott. They and their team shared their story with us below:
Steph and Kate met in 2011. Steph had been managing corporate fitness programs for about a decade and hired Kate as a Fitness Specialist. In 2014, Steph transferred locations to manage a different site, and Kate was promoted to manager to fill the vacancy. They worked for the same company as managers of separate sites. Outside of work, they always lived near each other and stayed in touch as friends. When the pandemic hit in 2020, they caught up over the summer. They shared their experiences managing their respective site programs virtually and laughed that it would be ideal for getting off their husbands’ hair, who were also working from home. Instead of Kate leading workouts in her spare bedroom and Steph fighting the elements of leading workouts on her back porch, a solution very close to home came about. The building next door to Steph became vacant, and she asked Kate if she’d like to split the rent to offer personal training sessions. They’d bring their equipment over and leave their homes to work. The idea moved forward quickly, and Steph shared a notebook sketch of ‘personal workout spaces’ and her husband, Jim, encouraged her to move forward with the bigger picture. In a rapid turn of events, Steph and Kate and their husbands, Jim and Matt, signed a lease, and the beginning stages of Personal Space Fitness moved forward. The next three years it involved leaps of faith and growth we had never imagined.
Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
Smooth?! No. Haha. There are many layers of getting a business up and running, and we learned a lot. We demoed and rehabbed a 100-year-old building that never knew it was going to be a gym. This building is smack in the middle of The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis and has previously been a deli, laundromat, hair salon, and even residential. We originally intended to use only the biggest space to house all the Personal Spaces needed for small-group training. During the demo, a door was discovered behind the drywall that connected the two main sections of the building, and it opened our minds that we could make this a full-blown business. And we did. We ran into several snags, such as the atypical space between the wall studs to bolt in our exercise equipment and accessories and navigating the ever-changing Pandemic guidelines. Three years later, these seem like distant memories, and we’ve been presented with new challenges and new solutions to go with them. We lease three unique spaces for small group and personal training. Our fourth building is ours! We purchased an old service station and are currently renovating it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us more about your business.
Personal Space Fitness is, first and foremost, A Neighborhood Gym. We are renovating our fourth building, turning vacant buildings into viable places to improve the area and the people who come through the doors. Our programming is backed by science, personalized, and fun. We take boutique-style workouts and include them all under one membership. You don’t have to share equipment. Workouts may be booked in advance and hold up to 10 persons at a time. We check in on our members, offer professional guidance, and measure results.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.personalspacefitness.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/personalspacefitness/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/personalspacefitnessSTL
Image Credits
Lynn Terry Photography https://www.lynnterry.com/
