Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah and Billy Aldridge.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
We did not plan to open a Thomas Kinkade art gallery. It just kind of happened. While visiting with a friend at the gallery, the owner said she was thinking about selling the gallery. I went home and mentioned it to my husband, Billy, and he said it might be a good idea to buy the gallery. So, here we are.
Billy is a retired Sergeant Major from the U.S. Army after thirty years of combined active and reserve duty. I had been a legal secretary for the better part of 25 years. When Billy retired from the Army, he was presented with many veteran business opportunities, but none of them seemed like the right fit for him or our family. Instead of opening a business of his own, he went back to the US Post Office in Spring, Texas and we resettled back in Spring, Texas.
I love that I get to spend my workday amidst all this beautiful art. 2014 was a very tough year for us. But we are grateful for the gifts that emerged, unexpectedly.
I was fired from my job for missing too much work to travel to Wisconsin to be with my dad and stepdad who were both battling cancers, taking a week’s vacation for one niece’s graduation and then hurrying home to take care of another niece’s funeral in Austin, then back to Wisconsin to be with my dad in his final days and plan his funeral, and once again back to Wisconsin to clean out his house a month later. In the midst of all that grieving, I received a call from a friend asking if I could help her out at her office. I was again blessed with the offer of a job working for two wonderful men who cared and listened and offered help when I didn’t realize I still needed help. I learned a lot at that job; things that will carry us through the next blessing to happen: this gallery. And this happened because of another blessing in our life: dear friends with whom we had lost contact but reconnected after a tragedy of their own.
This gallery has been a blessing to each party who has owned it in the past. We consider ourselves blessed that this opportunity has come to us and we look forward to helping everyone find their own place of peace and blessings with a wonderful work of art.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
While I have worked for other people and managed their offices and my husband has had many leadership roles in the Army, running our own business is tougher than I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, we both love it, but because the sale went through so quickly, little research was done on the actual value of the business and no market analysis was done. So we are learning as we go.
One of our challenges is that I have big ideas of what the gallery needs and Billy tells me I have to think of something else because it isn’t in the budget yet. And it’s amazing how quickly advertising can eat into the budget, especially when we try to do several events a year and each event demands its own chunk of the budget.
The location is also a blessing and a challenge. Old Town Spring is beautiful and quaint. But hot summer days are not conducive to people strolling about the streets looking for nice gifts or home decor. And I think that was our biggest hurdle in our first year of business – we took over the business in May, right before the 100 degree weather settle in last year.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Thomas Kinkade at PTL Gallery story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a retail art gallery featuring the art of Thomas Kinkade, the Painter of Light™, as well as Mark Keathley (Texas Artist), Abraham Hunter, Robert Finale and a few others. Each of the artists we feature has developed his own way of using light in their paintings to showcase their subject. We pride ourselves on not being pushy sales people and enjoy helping customers find the right painting for their home or workspace. We do our best to go that extra mile to give the customer an experience to enjoy. We have even gone so far as to deliver a new frame to a client in Plano, TX when theirs was damaged during delivery by FedEx.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I wouldn’t call it luck so much as I would fate. Everything that brought us to this point has just kind of “happened” to us and we rolled right along with it. Everything just fell into place once we made the decision to buy the business. And everything that had happened to us in the year prior led us to that point.
Contact Info:
- Address: 318 Main Street
Suite A
Spring, Texas 77373 - Website: www.ptlgallery.com
- Phone: 281-367-4901
- Email: info@ptlgallery.com
- Instagram: @ptlgallery
- Facebook: @ThomasKinkadeatPTLGallery
- Twitter: @PTLGallery
- Other: www.pintrest.com/ptl_gallery
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
