With a Courthouse View

Casey and Felicia Stone purchased the building that they now describe as a Loft Studio with a Courthouse view, on June 13th, 2022, and began the renovation the same week.

Felicia says what prompted them to restore the space was a creative itch -“I’ve always wanted to restore something old but it took some convincing to get my husband on board. He is a local custom home builder and would much prefer to build something new from the ground up. After fostering children for ten years I was feeling like I didn’t know who I was anymore. (I guess most people call that a midlife crisis.) I have always been a very creative/ right brained person, however, during the child raising and fostering years, I had very little time to be creative. Once Casey was convinced, we began to look at properties. When we learned of this building being for sale I knew it was exactly what we were looking for. It took approximately 10 months to finish.”

“Now that it is complete,” Felicia adds, “our plans for the space are for short term/overnight type rentals using the Airbnb platform.”

The excited and creative couple hope that their renovation sparks revitalization. “We live in the most beautiful place and believe there is potential here for a thriving downtown area. I would love to see more retail and restaurants around the court square. We need to give people a reason to get out and walk and to spend time downtown.”

Felicia feels that it would be so nice to pull some of our thriving, but outlying, retail businesses and restaurants to the center of town. It is just a matter, she believes, of custom renovating to potential buisness’ needs. For specific types of tenants in mind. “As of now, most businesses downtown close around 5 leaving the court square and Main Street mostly abandoned at night. I have recently read that the heart of every small town should be the court square. Everything fun and exciting should be happening downtown if you want a thriving small town. Also, it cannot happen if downtown is not pedestrian friendly. (A Dead

Downtown To America’s Best Downtown by Vertis and Richard Mason). There is no place quite like Heber Springs, AR. I love this place and am so honored to own a little piece of it.”

The Heber Springs Community Center hosted Spring Stay-Cation, their first Spring Break Camp, in late March. Looks like everyone had a blast from the kids to the volunteers!