Opening shop proves scary success

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

Debbie Costello is certain her business gave her a reason to live.

At Island Treasures, the store she opened in Kailua in 1996, Debbie Costello holds an example of what is sold: handmade work by Hawai'i artists. Instant success proved there was a market for high-quality Hawaiiana in Kailua. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

A fund-raiser that Costello's friend and manager, Linda Imai, organized through the store in 2002 generated $45,000 to help pay her medical costs.

Costello's voice carried no hint of melodrama when she said, "Island Treasures kept me alive."

The idea for the store marked the beginning of a new path in life for Costello and her husband, Bill.

He had just lost his Rainbow Island Valet business to bankruptcy and they didn't know what they would do for income.

Costello had never really worked, and didn't believe she had many marketable skills. She didn't even know how to use a computer — and still doesn't. But at the age of 40, Costello was determined to save their house near the beach in Kailua and keep their three children in separate private schools.

"There were no options," she said.

She knew how to make stained-glass, which sometimes generated as much as $1,000 a month through craft fairs and neighborhood sales. Bill suggested she might sell more through a store, but Debbie had her doubts she could make enough money.

They were talking about their business prospects at a Kailua delicatessen when Debbie saw, over a turkey-and-cranberry sandwich, a vacant, 800-square-foot yogurt shop on Kailua Road.

She knew she couldn't crank out stained-glass and run a store at the same time. So she got the idea of bringing in the work of 28 Hawaiian artists from around the Islands.

A bank loan gave her $25,000; she borrowed another $10,000 each from her mother and father.

Her only vision was to focus Island Treasures solely on Hawai'i products. It opened in February 1996 with two part-time employees, and Debbie wasn't sure what would happen.

On the first day, people from Kailua came in to see the only Hawaiiana store in their community. The bought koa bowls, koa bookmarks and sand-blasted glass.

"I was expecting it to be quiet," Costello said. "I was very leery in the beginning that there would be enough income to pay the utilities and pay the employees. But it's been busy ever since."

The key, she said, was an unfulfilled demand in Kailua for authentic Hawai'i products of high quality — whether inexpensive jams and teas or $4,000 koa furniture.

"I never wanted that junkie look," Costello said.

Island Treasures generated $160,000 in sales that first year, and more than doubled it in 1997, to $350,000. Revenue increased steadily, topping $1 million in 2002.

As sales increased, Costello paid off her loans and expanded into nearby empty businesses — from a chiropractor's office to a furniture showroom. She worked seven days a week and didn't take a paycheck for more than two years.

But with business increasing, Costello felt confident enough to deplete her savings to continue paying the family's personal bills.

The number of employees and artists grew. Costello opened a new Island Treasures in 1999 in the Koko Marina Shopping Center in Hawai'i Kai and hoped to capture the same success she had in Kailua.

That same year, Costello got her first diagnosis of breast cancer and underwent surgery and radiation treatment. The regimen sapped her strength and kept her from driving to Hawai'i Kai on a regular basis. In 2001, she got her second breast cancer diagnosis and sold the Hawai'i Kai store as she underwent a second surgery and chemotherapy treatment.

Working at the Kailua store kept Costello's thoughts off her medical problems. "No matter what," she said, "I worked a couple of hours every day."

Almost two years ago, she and her friend Gail Allen each invested $100,000 to open a different business — a clothing store just across Kailua Road called Kailua Beach Walk. In its first year, the store rang up $80,000 in sales.

"It's just across the street," Costello said. "It's really easy to run two businesses."

She works one day in one store and another day in the other. But business is running so smoothly at both shops that Costello has started to slow down. A bit.

She recently took her first weekend off in seven years and ended up walking along Kailua Beach.

It's the kind of thing that gives Costello, 47, a new perspective on her business success.

"I want to take time to smell the plumeria," she said. "I guess it took two cancers to find that out."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.