Meet Michelle Davenport | Owner of The Woodhouse Day Spa (Centennial and Boulder locations in Colorado)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michelle Davenport and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michelle, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I am from a suburb of Chicago and moved out to Colorado in 2010. I like to say I am a “jack of all trades” as I went to art school for graphic design, worked in the hospitality industry for multiple years, started a landscaping company and taught yoga before I ended up where I am at. All of these stepping stones (plus I had many more jobs when growing up!) taught me something imperative about life and working with people; whether that being our clientele or our employees. I was able to work with my creative side in college, learn about impeccable customer service skills in the hospitality industry, understood the tools/skills it took to own a business with the landscaping company and tapped into my well-being (and public speaking!) while being a yoga instructor. I’ve learned SO much more while owning two day spas; but I truly wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have all the skills I learned from my past career choices.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We own two luxury day spas called The Woodhouse Day Spa (Centennial and Boulder locations). Our spas are all about the experience; greeted with a friendly face, offered a complimentary glass of wine or tea, change into a plush robe and reflexology sandals and relax next to a fire in our relaxation rooms. We offer body treatments, massage, facials, nails (Centennial location) and halo therapy (Boulder location). The experience is unforgettable and we have managed to retain thousands of repeat guests over the last 7+ years in business. It definitely wasn’t easy and it takes time to build up clientele and our team is the main reason for our success. If you treat your team right, they will treat your clients right and the clients will keep coming back. The pandemic didn’t help matters as we had just opened Boulder and the town was shut down for a long time. We are just starting to build up our business there even though we opened in November of 2020. But…we’ve kept our doors open at each location and maintained our staff throughout it all and came out stronger! There are times I have wanted to give up because the stress can be over-bearing, but I’ve realized that we always end up okay. My team knows they can always come to me for anything as I’ve always had an open-door policy. I think if you have a mutual respect between your team and you, and they feel appreciated, your business can thrive and you can surpass goals you never thought you could!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, we recently moved to Morrison, Colorado and are absolutely loving it! There are a lot of great places in Denver as well as Morrison so our weekend would probably start out by stopping by Hillstone for lunch in Cherry Creek. There are so many cute shops around to walk and talk and enjoy good food and drink. When we head back closer to our location we would obviously have to go to a concert at Red Rocks and grab dinner at one of my favorite little places called Cafe Prague. The food and atmosphere is amazing and it had an intimate setting. If heading back to the Denver area you can’t miss out on La Loma, Guard and Grace, El Five, Quality Italian, etc. Lots of great places in Denver and hopefully more to come as the city seems to be growing!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Oh gosh, I have come across so many wonderful people my last 20+ years of my career path. My cousin Cathy Grady helped introduce me to some people in the hospitality industry in which I learned SO much about customer service. I had multiple bosses in that industry that believed in me and pushed me to work hard to deserve multiple promotions. My husband was the one who showed initial interest in opening up a day spa and believed in me to operate the spas and build the amazing teams that we have today at both of our locations. My mom also encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do in life (even if that meant packing up and leaving Chicago) and couldn’t have been a better cheerleader…I sometimes think she gets more excited than I do about our successes 🙂

Website: southglenn.woodhousespas.com boulder.woodhousespas.com

Instagram: woodhousespa.southglenn woodhouseboulder

Facebook: Woodhouse Spa Centennial-Streets at Southglenn and Woodhouse Spa – Boulder