InTouch Wellness Center's New Owners Keeping Atmosphere, Adding Services
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — InTouch Wellness and Day Spa has new owners who are keeping it the same while also expanding what they offer.
Newlyweds Abigail and Dylan Hilchey took over the 23-year-old business after former owner Marc Freedman decided to sell.
Abigail said Freedman had built the spa up after a fire had burned the main area in 2001. The Mezze restaurant had been located in the 84 Water St. building at the time and had relocated rather than rebuilding. She described Freedman as polishing it as time went on. After a biking trip through Asia, Freedman was inspired by the vision of a Japanese torii gate, which means a portal to a sacred place, and the gate he modeled outside for customers to walk through.
"He was really just a visionary, and saw a diamond in the rough. He said that what motivated him is he just kept wanting to sit out on this deck. One of the other massage therapists was like, this is just like a diamond, but he just kept polishing and polishing, you know, all the years, and he was really looking for somebody that was gonna preserve what he had built. He wanted it to continue in some form, in like a similar entity to what it already was," she said.
Freedman is still helping the two new owners out and coming by every week with his dog.
"Working with Marc has been fantastic. Being running this business for 23 years is definitely a professional in what he was doing. So, with us not having really knowledge of running a massage business, he really helped us in just setting a lot of things up, he's worked with us throughout the process. It's been absolutely fantastic in training us in different processes that the business uses," Dylan said.
The spa has many services including massage, facials, waxing and body treatments. The couple want to make sure people know they are not getting rid of anything; they still have all of the same services and the same staff but also will be expanding their offerings.
"Nothing's getting taken away. We have all the same staff, minus the previous owner. But we're working on hiring clinicians. We're going to be offering yoga and movement classes. We hired a cosmetologist. We were going to be expanding proper hair services. We're going to be doing group therapy and couples therapy intensives sometime in the next year," Abigail said. 'So it's really like the vision is for it to be an integrative wellness community where you know people can access lots of different modes of wellness."
And, yes, they are still honoring gift certificates, which are good for seven years.
They have decided to name the spa InTouch Wellness Center, with the concept that customers will make it a regular stop instead of just an occasional treat.
"When we think of a spa, we think of like you know once or twice a year, kind of like a luxury service. We're trying to move toward a lifestyle shift and a place that people regularly go to to take care of themselves," Abigail said.
Dylan earned a psychology degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and worked for about 12 years in sales, building teams for companies. Abigail earned her master's in social work from Simmons University and her psychology degree from Lasell University. She then worked in the Veterans Affairs office with robust trauma training and then in a local group practice. They were both raised in Berkshire County, coming back to the area not long ago.
They wanted their wellness center to offer mental health service to the community.
"There is a real gap in mental health services in the community, particularly couples therapy. That's something I found coming out here. Is that almost like at the group practice I was at, I was like, yeah, I'll take on couples clients, and then it was like my whole choice load," she said, adding she was told "nobody wants to see couples."
They came across the notice that Freedman was selling in January, and bought the property on July 30.
They said they used to come to InTouch occasionally for massages and loved the atmosphere.
"It was an opportunity for us to kind of step into what he's already built and grown here, and expand that, and keep it in the community," Dylan said. "And then offer services that Abby's been offering in the community that are highly needed, and be able to kind of expand a space that can really help the surrounding community while preserving this beautiful space and open it up to more people to come and enjoy."
They hope that people will come to them more often to take care of themselves whether its for therapy, a massage, their hair, or to relax.
"Our hope is to have more people in the community know about it and bring in more people that just might not be on their mind to do something to take care of themselves," Abigail said. "We've noticed with having clients come in for clinical therapy that they're like, 'I've thought about getting a massage here for 10 years and just haven't done it,' but I'm going to do it now because they end up walking through the door. So we're hoping with all the different services that whatever gets them through the door that they'll be more apt to do other things to take care of themselves."
Abigail said they have also expanded their hours to accommodate those who may work. They will now be open until 6 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday.
"It's really important to us that we can accommodate working people. We could only ever come on the weekends, and we're quite full on the weekends," she said.
Tags: business changes, massage therapy, spa,
