A Second Chance

Just like the makeovers and services she provides to customers, spa owner Jinx Liggett is scrubbing away the past and trying to start anew.

Liggett opened Mahalo Salon & Spa last August in the prominent two-story building on U.S. 41 in Bonita Springs. Formerly Danielle Spa & Salon, the business closed a little more than a year after Liggett sold it to Aevium Corp. of New York.

But while she tries to bounce back from the crisis that sale caused the business, former employees continue to display their bitterness about the experience. Liggett hopes her ties to the community are strong enough to lure patrons to her reborn venture.

"The community's perception and the employees that were so angry and believed that we knew more than there was-that was most difficult and continues to be problematic," she says.

Liggett says her former reputation and loyal clients gave her reason to reopen with a brighter Hawaiian theme. But she admits combating the impact on her reputation has been exhausting; vendors and others she worked with in the past were burned when the money stopped coming from Aevium, and some are still angry.

"Many times, we had to start up with different vendors," she says.

Liggett, 55, moved from Baltimore to Southwest Florida in 1997 with her late husband, Edward Komp. (She is now married to Lloyd Liggett, vice president of Northern Trust Bank.)

As a healthcare administrator, she had frequently traveled and used spas while away from home. She became a repeat customer at facilities that allowed her to fit appointments into her schedule.

When she moved to Bonita Springs, she saw a need for a spa, not in a strip mall, but in a freestanding, eye-catching location. "I would not access a little space that was a salon first and had a room tacked on for a facial," she says. "We decided to do it on a fairly grand scale."

She and her husband purchased the 1.42-acre site at U.S. 41 and West Terry Street. They retained spa architect Robert Henry to design what would become a 15,500-square-foot, two-story building that, in addition to the salon and spa, could include restaurant, retail, service and professional tenants. The couple decided to name their new enterprise Danielle, after their daughter. The $1.9-million facility opened in March 1999 and was considered one of the area's premier spas, preceding the spas at the Ritz-Carlton, Naples, and other facilities now in operation. "We were five to six years ahead of the curve," she says.

Liggett launched a public relations and advertising campaign and marketed to physicians, podiatrists, caretakers, wealthy residents and European visitors. She invited hotel concierges to experience the services in the hope they would remember Danielle when recommending a spa to guests.

The Ritz-Carlton did just that. The hotel's assistant spa director John Kossenyans says when the Ritz opened its spa four years ago, it was inundated with requests for spa services. It wasn't fully staffed, however, and needed to refer guests to other local spas.

"Jinx was a person that I could rely on," Kossenyans says. "If she committed to something, she kept her commitment. I needed to find a spa that I felt comfortable with to give that service commitment."

Liggett's ultimate vision was to have dermatologists, plastic surgeons, podiatrists and others at Danielle Spa. To do that she needed more money, so she marketed the company to physicians and in April 2003 sold it to Aevium Corp., a New York-based operator of salons and spas, for $800,000. As part of the business buyout, Liggett would remain general manager of Danielle, and another company she co-owns retained ownership of the property. She sold the business and name to Aevium.

"They gave us the credibility to really connect with other physicians in the area," she says of Aevium Corp.

Improvements on the way to accomplishing Liggett's dream included adding dermatologists. But less than a year later, Aevium stopped paying rent. "The money was coming in; there was money being made," she says. Employees say they then discovered on their own-sometimes during a doctor's appointment-that they no longer had health insurance. On July 17, Liggett resigned, and 10 days later, Aevium closed Danielle.

"It wasn't until the very end until any of us knew anything," Liggett says.

One red flag was that Aevium executives weren't connected to the community. "They would fly in and out," she says.

Gina Israeloff, who had worked at Danielle Spa for four years and was spa director when she was fired, filed a complaint against the spa through the U.S. Department of Labor. Israeloff says Liggett and her brother, Mike Sullivan, who was hired by Aevium as vice president of operations, insisted that employees were covered under insurance when they weren't. Israeloff says two pregnant female employees ended up without maternity benefits. Another spa staffer was about to undergo surgery before it was discovered that she didn't have insurance.

"This whole thing has absolutely devastated so many lives," Israeloff says, adding that she and other employees didn't know who to believe. "There were so many twists and turns going on."

Liggett says she met with officials from the U.S. Department of Labor twice and presented the little documentation they had of Aevium's operations. She says the complaint was about Aevium, not her, and she was glad to have the opportunity to present her side of the story to officials.

Efforts to track down Aevium for this story, either by phone or Internet, were unsuccessful.

Liggett understands that former employees and customers were caught off guard and angry. "It's very hard for them to believe that we didn't know what was going on," she says.

"I could have maybe done something," she says, then adds, "We were doing too well and we were very busy."

After the spa closed, Liggett, longtime stylist Gandolfo Riotto and Sullivan quickly regrouped to start a new company, Spa Development Group LLC. Sullivan says they got outside funding to open the new spa. They secured a new lease on the property, of which Liggett is a partial owner.

"I said we worked too long and hard to have this happen to us," Liggett says. "The point is we do care. We care about the guests. We care about Bonita Springs."

The team opened Mahalo on Aug. 12, 2004.

The spa's color scheme has changed from off-white to red and, in keeping with the Hawaiian influence that produced the Mahalo name, an outdoor garden area is being used for treatments. Revenue, Sullivan says, is projected to reach $4 million this year. Before Danielle Spa was sold to Aevium, its annual revenue was $3 million. Sullivan says if Aevium had stayed on and completed the year, they would have hit at or above the $4 million market.

Dr. Kae Ferber, an internist at Anchor Health Centers, was a client at Danielle Spa and has continued to use the spa since it changed to Mahalo, primarily because of the facials. She's received facials from the same person since she started going to Danielle, and says she receives excellent service during her appointments. "I really didn't notice much change between the two salons," Ferber says.

The spa employs more than 50 people; Liggett says three-quarters are former staff members. Mahalo has salon, spa, nails, cosmetics and body-wrap/weight-loss departments, but it's back to the start in terms of the treatments. The salon no longer has medically supervised treatments, although that remains a goal. This time, Liggett says, it will be different.

"We're not going to allow someone to buy us. We would like to partner with somebody," she says.

Liggett has learned that local ownership is best. "The biggest thing we did that was right was we did it alone again. We didn't try to make a deal with Aevium. We didn't try to bring in an investor," she says. "We tried to put it back ourselves."

But she does question whether it was smart to reopen a new spa in the same facility that caused so many questions and controversy. "In hindsight, we should have looked for another location," she says. "To come in and open a new business at the same location was, I believe, problematic. Definitely we should have moved."

The region's spa business also is more crowded now than when she originally opened Danielle. The major hotels all have luxury spas, and competitors include a new Bonita Springs salon owned by two former Danielle employees. "There's still nothing like us," Liggett says. "There's lots of little salons that will add on a room and call it a spa. They're really no competition."

But through everything, she hopes she is earning back the respect of clients. "I work hard to have their respect," she says. "If they like me, it's a bonus."