Do it all Downtown.
It’s a phrase David Oldham, Lisa Murphy, and Brett Lyon have to come to practice every day at the new location of Elements Design Resource Studio, opened in July on the ground floor of Innovation Pointe. The new space allows the group to not only continue offering design services, but also expand to a boutique retail space with unique items.
“We are out of the box here — and you can tell that when you walk by,” says Oldham, who began Elements more than 20 years ago. “Everything we do, we try to show the most creative side we can.”
Prior to Elements’ move this year, Oldham ran his contemporary design business quite literally across the street in a space shared with Kaskaskia Engineering Group. While being Downtown always has been ideal for Oldham, he continued to look for the perfect retail space. After past attempts on the suite at Innovation Pointe, he finally was able to lease the space from Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville and bring in his design studio.
“We get a host of positive reviews, and that’s what we want. We want people to feel the positive energy here and leave happy,” says Oldham. “When we initially opened in this space, we didn’t have a gift shop, but people kept coming in looking for unique items to purchase.”
The retail space of Elements offers Beekman 1802 lines of beauty and food products, owned by Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge of New York. The store carries five beauty scent lines which feature lotions, soaps, and lip balms. The food selection varies in options from jams and chocolates to sauces and more. Design still is the “bread and butter” of the business, says Oldham, and the retail offerings have just bolstered the business.
“You come in and it looks so good and smells so good,” says Murphy. “It’s hard to have a bad day being here.”
Though Elements is not the only design-centric shop on Main Street, Oldham does not look at the other stores as competition, but as group of fellow independent designers offering Evansville a multitude of choices to fit different styles.
“It’s not a competition. It’s complementary to me. You walk past the windows, look in, and immediately see we’re different,” he says. “The thing I like most about being Downtown is the design shops work together to push a high quality design matrix.”
Elements Design Resource Studio
Innovation Pointe • 318 Main St., Ste. 100 • 812-204-2017
elements318main.com
Blast from the Past
Elements is no stranger to the pages of Evansville Living magazine. Oldham’s work has been found in many featured homes:
• Mid Century on Lincoln Ave., May/June 2010
• Oldham’s former Stratman’s apartment, City View 2008
• 1950s Modern home on Scenic Drive, Jan./Feb. 2008
• 2006 Modern Riverview Court home, Nov./Dec. 2006. See an update on this home in this issue’s featured home story, “Point of View.”
