New space, new duties for dance studio

Holly Hewitt arrives at the half-completed dance studio in downtown Lakeville that she's been dreaming about for seven years, and it's time for some headgear.

She's often parking a motorcycle and pulling a helmet off her head when she gets to work, but today she's packed a hard hat in the back of her SUV so she can inspect progress on the 12,000-square-foot building she's opening next month.

The oft-cited cliche about how Hewitt wears a lot of different hats is too tired to be applied here, but it would be true: Since starting Holly's Centre Stage Dance in Enggren's Mall in 2000, the 34-year-old Hewitt's do-it-yourself style has run through just about every aspect of her business.

She's knocked out walls. She's fought for loans. She's done taxes. And she's found time to manage a dance studio that's grown to more than 650 students and yearly revenues of roughly $250,000.

Now she's preparing to take on a new role: property management. The new building will have two tenants occupying 20 percent of the space.

"I'm kind of a risk taker," she said. "I'd encourage everybody to go into business for themselves. If you've got a passion, do it."

A dancer since age 3, Hewitt majored in kinesiology at the University of Minnesota and took a job as the fitness instructor at the Minnesota Valley YMCA. She decided to start her own studio in 1999, but there was a problem: Banks were reluctant to give financing to a young, single woman without business experience.

A Northwest Airlines mechanic, Bill Hewitt had a $30,500 inheritance he planned to invest. Instead, he turned it into seed money for the dance studio.

"I was crying to my dad -- I mean, literally bawling," Holly Hewitt said. "He said, 'When your grandma died, she gave me an inheritance. I was going to invest it anyway. I'll invest it in you.' And, of course, that made me cry even more."

Since the studio's inception, Bill Hewitt has done almost as many jobs there as his daughter. Now retired from Northwest, he works at the studio as one of two full-time employees.

According to Holly Hewitt, he's there when she's looking at business from "an emotional, girly point-of-view." He also answers phones, orders merchandise, refinishes floors and plugs leaks in the ceiling -- although he's happy to be giving that part of his job up in the new building.

The rest of it, he plans to do for quite a while longer.

Things don't figure to slow down for Holly Hewitt now that she's on the verge of opening her own space. An extra dance studio means she can take on more students, and she's still talking to her leasing agent about her responsibilities as a landlord.

She has also learned enough about the business side of the studio that she's entertaining the idea of a commercial real estate venture.

That seems like a logical step for a woman who's not afraid to tackle much of her life with a helmet on.

"I've never arrived. I can always do more," she said. "I'm so happy in life, it's hard to explain."

Ben Goessling • 612-673-7252