Hearth & Soul Offers a Unique Shopping Experience in St. Louis

The brainchild of Susie Busch-Transou, Hearth & Soul is a home away from home.

The specialty boutique, located on Clayton Road in Ladue, offers a unique shopping experience, where you can find beautiful items for your home, your loved ones or yourself. From modern light fixtures to vintage area rugs and feather earrings to chocolate truffle tins, the carefully curated collection will warm your heart and feed your soul.

The freestanding store embodies Susie Busch-Transou’s passions, including friendship, hospitality and shopping, and it has a unique strategy: Everything is for sale.

Do you like that couch? It’s for sale.

Do you want that coffee table book about living in the mountains? It’s yours.

Do you look good in that sweater? Get it!

Hearth & Soul also has a robust events calendar. Trunk shows where you can meet the featured fashion designer, book readings by local authors and girls’ nights with wellness partners, among other events, bring people into the store, and once they arrive, they can better understand the concept.

The interior is set up like a home, with a foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen, women’s closet, men’s closet and book nook, where you’ll find everything from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels to Michelle Obama’s memoir. “We hope that you get a warm and fuzzy feeling when you walk through the doors,” store manager Caroline Wright says.

“The store is calming,” marketing and events manager Kathryn Goessling adds. “You can mosey around the rooms without feeling rushed, and we always say that you have to take at least three laps: Look down low, in the middle and up high because there are so many things to discover.”

“Whether or not you’re shopping, we want you to feel at home,” Wright continues. “You can attend an event, explore the space or just grab a complimentary cup of coffee. Everyone is welcome here. This is a place to gather.”

While it’s fun to shop for clothes, planters, mugs and more, Hearth & Soul also gives customers a chance to give back to the local community. Every month, it features a candle, and 100 percent of the net profits from the sale of that candle go to a local nonprofit partner. “It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” Wright says. “Through the program, we’ve gotten to meet so many amazing people and impact a lot of lives – just because of candles!”

Hearth & Soul has locations in Tallahassee, Florida, and Austin, Texas, as well, and across the three stores, approximately 70 percent of the items are the same. In St. Louis, the rest of the pieces come from local artisans and makers.

“We’ve sourced local products in a multitude of ways, including visiting Procure at City Foundry where we were exposed to amazing women-owned brands,” Wright explains.

If you want to shop local, look for Millis Meadows Honey, which sells beeswax lip balm, soap and other natural products for your home and body alongside honey; TERRA candles in fragrances such as amaretto-chestnut, golden woods, Italian garden, lavender cloud and peach blossom; and Tess & tomy pearl necklaces. Rungolee, which touts boho-inspired haute couture by designer Anjali Kamra at its storefront on Clayton Road, also created a line of St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Blues gear for Hearth & Soul.

“It’s a fun way to support St. Louis sports and local fashion designers at the same time,” Goessling says. “We’re the only location [of Hearth & Soul] that has a fashion partner. St. Louis has a rich history in the fashion industry, and it’s important to celebrate established fashion designers and spotlight those still trying to kick start their career in order to continue our legacy.”

The boutique receives new products daily, making every shopping trip special. The best part? The staff is passionate about each and every product because they know the stories behind them.

“We know where and how our products are made,” Wright says. “When customers ask about pillows, for example, we can say, ‘Oh, these – they’re handmade in Italy with antique pieces of fabric,’ and then they become more than pillows.”

Boasting a neighborhood feel in a big city, Hearth & Soul hopes to draw visitors from downtown St. Louis to Ladue. “We’re excited to bring tourists to this part of St. Louis,” Wright says. “This section of Clayton Road features curated shops, and we love being a pit stop on their shopping excursions.”