Trevor Prevost (left), owner of Wilde’s, and Stonewall Gallery owner Michael Deyell are merging their stores to stay in business. Anna Carroll, Centretown NewsA last-minute push to save two flagship retailers for the city’s LGBTTQ+ community has succeeded.
After decades of serving the Ottawa LGBTTQ+ community, two Centretown businesses were both having trouble generating enough revenue to stay open.
Stonewall Gallery, formerly the bookstore called After Stonewall, and the adult entertainment shop Wilde’s recently ran a crowdfunding campaign to help finance a merger aimed at saving their stores.
Michael Deyell and Trevor Prevost, the owners of Stonewall and Wilde’s respectively, were struggling to stay in business because of increased rents and other expenses.
Bringing the businesses together under the name Stonewall Wilde’s, they decided, could help manage costs and keep both enterprises sustainable.
The crowdfunding campaign, run through the website Indiegogo.com, began accepting donations in mid-August. The campaign was supposed to run for just a few weeks, but after falling short of their $12,000 goal, Deyell and Prevost extended the deadline to Sept. 20.
If the Indiegogo campaign had failed to raise enough money to complete the planned renovation of Stonewall’s space to accommodate a Wilde’s relocation, Deyell said he was unsure of what would have happened next to the two businesses.
The renovation involves moving Wilde’s into the downstairs space at the Stonewall Gallery and creating a combined, two-storey retail setting.
“The renovations needed to create this two-level shopping experience consisting of a commercial staircase joining the main floor and lower level together, drywall, flooring, electrical and more,” said Deyell.
With barely 25 per cent of the targeted funds raised just prior to the Sept. 20 deadline, it appeared that a difficult path was ahead for Stonewall Wilde’s.
However, an anonymous donor helped turn things around.
“We had an ‘angel’ investor step up at the last minute who believed in us and our businesses,” Deyell said in a statement.
On Sept. 24, Deyell announced that the makeover of the lower level at Stonewall would start this month.
Wilde’s was scheduled to shut down its current location on Sept. 29, and Deyell said he hopes to have the two-level business open by Thanksgiving.
Deyell had said earlier he was concerned that closing down his business would affect the local LGBTTQ+ community.
Stonewall Gallery and Wilde’s are located in Ottawa’s designated LGBTTQ+ neighbourhood – The Village – which runs along Bank Street from Nepean to James.
The Village designation was meant to support LGBTTQ+ businesses, but some establishments have been moving out or closing their doors in recent years, said Deyell.
“If Stonewall and Wilde’s were to close, there would be no real village, with an exception of a handful of other businesses,” he said in the days before the fundraising goal had been reached.
After Stonewall opened in 1990 as Ottawa’s first LGBTTQ+ bookstore. The name of the shop was a reference to New York’s Stonewall riots of 1969 — a landmark event in the North American gay liberation movement. The store has served as a kind of a cultural centre for the LGBTTQ+ community in Ottawa for two decades.
Deyell purchased the store in 2012, as the previous owner no longer believed that stand-alone bookstores were viable in the era of online booksellers. Deyell said rebranding as a gallery, while retaining some book sales as part of the business, helped keep the store afloat.
Prevost did his own share of rebranding, as Wilde’s was originally opened in 1993 as an adult store focusing on the male gay demographic. Since then, the store has taken a more inclusive approach, with products for all members of the LGBTTQ+ spectrum.
Merging with Stonewall will provide an opportunity to stock new products as well. These new products will include leather gear and pride products such as T-shirts, stickers, flags, jewelry, pins, rainbow leashes, key chains, hats and sunglasses.
Throughout the campaign, Deyell remained positive that it would all work out.
“It’s all about community, it’s all about working together,” he said. “I bought the business because I’m passionate about the literature and the art.”