Roseann Sereday and her granddaughter, Milania, sit among the Christmas items for sales at La Bella Boutique. Milania is the namesake for the children’s clothing section.
Roseanne Sereday has always loved crafts – looking at them and making them – but her interest took on a new dimension when a family member became ill and needed to be hospitalized for an extended time.
“I started making wreaths just to keep my mind occupied and not so worried about him,” the Brookfield woman said.
She built so many wreaths that, “All of a sudden, I had a bedroom full of wreaths and I’m thinking, ‘What am I gonna do with all this?’”
Separately, Sereday was driving past the Zebroski Insurance building on Warren Sharon Road in Brookfield one day when she saw John Zebroski walking out. She pulled over and offered to buy his building. He accepted.
“I purchased the building, and I was tossing around what I wanted to do with it,” she said.
Sereday brought her craftiness and her property development skills together by opening a boutique in the building to showcase her crafts – and so much more.
La Bella Boutique at 7601 Warren Sharon Road opened Nov. 15 with Sereday’s wreaths and arrangements, holiday home décor items, clothing for women, boys and girls and personal and home accessories.
“Everything I have here is high end, but it’s not high-end priced,” she said. “They’re very reasonable.”
Sereday offers one-on-one service and an honest opinion if you want to know how a piece of clothing looks on you.
“The clothes, a lot of people go crazy about her clothes, but what Roseann probably doesn’t want to admit or tell you is she takes pride in dressing herself well, as well as dressing my daughter, Milania, well,” said Sereday’s daughter-in-law, Lauren Sereday. “She prides herself on her appearance and she wants the women of the local community to feel the same.”
The initial response to La Bella Boutique has been strong.
“The first day I was open, I sold 83 of my arrangements and stuff like that,” Roseann Sereday said. “I was really, really overwhelmed of the love from everybody that came in here.”
People are coming from as far away as Warren and Niles, and motorists on Warren Sharon Road are stopping in just to see what she has, she said.
“I was surprised every day,” Sereday said of her sales. “Even the other day, I was closed but, for the fun of it, I turned the light on. I was surprised how much I sold.”
Sereday and her husband, Richard, have run their signature business – Sereday’s – for 40 years, offering trucking, roll-off waste removal bins, demolition and concrete crushing, and Roseann Sereday has done it all, from driving trucks to paying bills. La Bella Boutique offers her an alternative.
“I just love this place,” she said. “It’s real peaceful. This is just a breath of fresh air in here.”
La Bella Boutique will be open pretty much year round. For now, it’s open noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays through New Year’s.
Sereday said she also will accommodate private appointments – send her a Facebook message to arrange – and feel free to stop in any time she has her “Open” sign lit up, even if it’s a different day.
“If I’m here designing some wreaths and arrangements, I’ll put the light on ‘Open’ to let everybody know I’m here,” she said.
