Blue Sky Massage has found longevity in relief. Opening in 1999, Blue Sky Massage is celebrating its 20th year in business this year. Its owners, Karen and Tim Givens, know they couldn’t have gotten this far without each other.
The high elevation wellness center in Winter Park tends to a variety of a needs, including all sorts of massages, facials, body treatments and much more. It’s dedicated to safe and effective skin care techniques, using only natural and organic products. And as some might guess from the owners’ shared last name, they are married.
Tim and Karen Givens were dating when they finished massage school and decided to start a business together. Now they’re being recognized as the best spa/salon in addition to finishing in second place as a couple for best therapist.
First, they started working out of a room inside a hair salon until the spa was big enough to move into its own space.
“We put in a lot of hard work doing on-site massages at various hotels over the years, chair massages, you name it, just whatever we could do to establish our business,” Karen said.
Over the years, the spa has survived two floods, the economic downturn and four moves, all before the Givens bought their own space about three years ago. Now, they have five rooms in the second-floor office at Pine Tree Plaza, giving Blue Sky Massage one of the largest facilities of its kind in the county, with a team of eight therapists including the owners, both of whom do massages there.
The spa’s clientele can be elite athletes, bike racers and ultra marathon runners seeking sports and deep tissue massages, along with Winter Park’s guests, or people Tim and Karen Givens have known so long they feel “like family.”
“The tourists love us for the relaxation,” she said. “The skiers come in after a long day on the hill, but as for the local clientele, we’ve been able to offer them a lot of relief going through whatever life is throwing at them.”
She feels especially “humbled” when people leave the spa loving the way they feel, and she directs a lot of credit for the business’s amazing longevity to the spa’s “talented, wonderful” staff.