The Energy of Place

Dee Kelly wasn’t looking for a new client when she walked into Vintage Marketplace.

She happened to overhear owner Janie Perry talking about plans to move the longtime Wilmington business into a larger space. Kelly introduced herself, gave Perry a quick explanation of what she does and made an offer: When you find the new location, let’s talk.

Perry eventually did and enlisted Kelly to analyze the potential success of the new building and whether she should make the investment.

By the time Vintage Marketplace moved into its latest iteration — an 18,000-square-foot space housing 40 independent vendors — Kelly had already created the framework that would become the building’s energy roadmap.

Using the principles of Traditional Feng Shui, she helped determine how the sprawling marketplace could be designed to support revenue and give every business inside it the best opportunity to thrive. Kelly worked closely with the interior design team to ensure the design supported the overall energy of the space.

“Where you are determines how you are,” Kelly says.

If your understanding of Feng Shui involves moving a sofa, adding a plant or choosing the right color for a room, Kelly practices something quite different. 

Understanding Feng Shui

Kelly began her own studies with Black Hat Feng Shui, the Westernized approach most familiar in the United States. She studied Black Hat in New York City until she was chosen and trained in authentic Traditional Feng Shui under a Taiwanese master. She also studied in China, the U.S. and around the globe.

Twenty-five years later, her client list includes major corporations, hedge funds, large-scale developments, restaurants, celebrities and even royalty.

Traditional Feng Shui, she explains, begins not inside a building but outside.

The surrounding land, orientation of the property and directions from which energy enters all matter. Kelly uses a Luo Pan, the traditional Chinese compass used in Feng Shui, to make precise calculations and determine how the surrounding environment interacts with a building.

“Feng Shui” translates to “wind and water,” but Kelly says direction is fundamental to the practice. Without it, she says, you aren’t practicing Traditional Feng Shui. “Feng” really means direction.

“The built environment has an inextricable relationship with its surroundings,” she says. “Think of any home or building as a body and ‘Feng,’ or direction, as the ‘food.’”

The Eight Energy Sectors at Vintage Marketplace

At Vintage Marketplace, those principles shaped practical decisions. The space was considered according to eight directional sectors, each associated with different types of energy. By understanding the significance of the eight directions combined with the five elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal, Kelly can determine the best locations for different aspects of a business, creating what she calls an “extra added insurance policy” for its success.

With 40 businesses sharing one marketplace, the goal was to create the best possible layout not only for the marketplace as a whole but for each vendor individually. Perry wanted to give each of them every possible advantage to succeed. Each was hand-picked with an eye toward creating a mix of businesses that would complement one another. 

Our Relationships with Spaces Matter

Kelly views Feng Shui as a tool for helping people improve their relationship with the places where they live and work. For a residence, that means focusing on health, relationships and well-being. For a business, profitability and longevity become part of the equation, along with the well-being of the people working there.

Kelly’s work often begins before a building ever exists. She works with property owners, developers, architects and design teams, evaluating everything from the land itself to building orientation and interior layout. Traditional Feng Shui also considers cycles of time, including 20-year periods practitioners use to identify particularly potent energies during a specific period.

The principles may be centuries old, but the questions Kelly applies them to are current: How can a business become more successful? How can a home better support the health and relationships of the people living there?

At Vintage Marketplace, that means thinking about the livelihoods of the people behind 40 individual vendor spaces — each belonging to someone Perry personally chose and wants to see succeed.

For Kelly, the compass, calculations and centuries-old principles are simply the tools she uses to help create spaces that work better for the people inside them.

Vintage Marketplace is located at 5128 Oleander Drive in Wilmington. For more information on Dee Kelly and Wellness Décor, visit wellnessdecor.com.