Clearwater costume shop needs help to stay open

CLEARWATER, Fla. - For nearly 50 years, the custom-costume shop House of Make Believe has been helping their customers transform for a couple of hours.

"This place is a place where you come in looking ordinary, and you leave looking like a star," owner Bernice Stoneberg said.

Now, the generational, family-owned business needs help from the community. Like many local businesses, House of Make Believe is batting rising rent costs.

Stoneberg says the landlord of the Clearwater property is planning to demolish parts of it to increase parking for a thriving business in the complex. The tenants have known about this possibility for a couple years, but the challenge is finding a similar, affordable space.

"I would love to be able to continue this with someone or inspire someone, and I would even be willing to stay on and help," Stoneberg said.

Stoneberg is open to a bevy of possible solutions, whether it’s finding a new space, selling the company or taking on a partner. In a perfect world, she wants the business to continue. She says she simply needs help.

"I've got people that come from the Villages, Ocala and Melbourne because we're a dying breed," she said.

Since the early 2000s, one of those customers is Denise Rodriguez. She works with the non-profit Ready For Life, which helps support those who age out of foster care. She rents mascot costumes to wear to the organizations’ fundraisers and events.

"In a perfect world, someone would invest in the business. Someone would help her keep the doors open and identify another location," Rodriguez said.

House of Make Believe first opened its doors in 1978, started by Stoneberg’s mother and grandmother. It blossomed and grew, until the rise of the internet and party chain stores. Rodriguez says there’s no comparison, in terms of the supplies, time and effort in perfecting the fit of the costumes.

"We've done plays for various different high schools and middle schools and things like that," Stoneberg said. "They would come in, we'd measure them, get them fitted, do all the alterations, whatever needed to be done so that they would have a wonderful performance."

Because of financial and health challenges, Stoneberg remains as the long employee. The business has over 30,000 pieces. The deadline to vacate the building is May 1.

"The community needs this. I’ve got so many of the people that have had costume stores before Covid close," Stoneberg said. "It's different. It's not going to be what you find on the internet. It's just not because that's not who we are."

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