Business focus: Possibilities a turning point for family

A photograph in the backroom of Lee and Jill Kausen’s downtown Coeur d’Alene custom gift-basket shop, Possibilities, shows their three children in the midst of remodeling their Sherman Avenue business when it was little more than white walls and carpet in an empty space.

For the Kausens, the picture symbolizes a time of trial on their road to business ownership.

That photograph was taken two weeks into the transformation of the narrow shop, just after the family had moved to the Lake City.

However, well before Possibilities opened, a farsighted plan was set in motion when a family member asked the couple, prophetically it now seems: “Have you ever heard of the town of Coeur d’Alene in North Idaho?”

At the time, the California natives were mulling whether to move. Though they had opened a few businesses in their hometown of Fallbrook in San Diego County, including a chocolate bar with homemade treats operated out of their home, the businesses never seemed to catch on.

“We tried to open a business in California,” Jill Kausen said. But “we couldn’t find a place of business.”

Lee Kausen, meanwhile, had been working as a commercial real estate appraiser, but business had slowed. It was at that time several years ago when one moment would change everything for the father of three.

It happened while flipping through stations on the radio, when the dial landed on a Christian station – and there it stayed. Since that February 1997 afternoon, it has been forever etched in Lee Kausen’s mind as the moment when he became a born-again Christian and an unknown, unseen path eventually would lead the family to North Idaho.

On the suggestion from some friends that a hidden gem of a town could be found tucked in the mountains of Idaho, Jill and Lee Kausen found themselves eating at a downtown Coeur d’Alene restaurant, enjoying the stunning scenery and already fond of Idaho’s slower pace of life.

As they chatted over food and drinks on the Sherman Avenue strip in the summer of 2003, Jill Kausen recalls, they thought about how much they liked the bustling downtown district.

“We were talking about how cool it would be to have a place down here,” she said.

Once they returned to Fallbrook, home just didn’t seem like home anymore.

“We felt different when we got home; both of us didn’t feel the same,” Lee Kausen said. “It was just different from any other time we returned home after a trip.”

While the idea to travel north was precipitated by an offhand remark, the family took two more trips the following year to the North Idaho town, the last in which a deal was put in the works for the 211 1/2 Sherman Ave. location.

Luckily, their broker missed a phone call from the family that would have canceled the deal because the Kausens couldn’t sell their California home before the specified date.

Two weeks later, with their home sold, the Kausens – Lee and Jill; daughter, Haley, now 13; sons, Kurt, now 14, and Kyle, now 16; and golden retriever Brody – were on the road ahead of the moving truck en route to North Idaho.

“This was just the place for us,” Jill Kausen said as she prepared a gift basket for some customers and offered to deliver the basket to them down the street later in the afternoon. “You see,” she laughed, “we cater to our customers.”

Now, halfway through their third year in business, the Kausens’ Possibilities shop hardly resembles the one in the family photograph. It’s a fitting reminder of the family-sized effort it took to transform the former bookstore into the gift-basket and wine-tasting shop it is today. “We had a lot of work to do,” Lee Kausen said.

The work started in August 2004 when the family picked up the keys and began the remodeling, hoping to have the store ready for the busy holiday season.

After work that included floors stripped to the original 1917 floorboards, buckets of paint applied to the interior and a healthy supply of local goods such as huckleberry sauces and imported wines in place, Possibilities opened its doors in November.

The Kausens recently added a wine-tasting room in the back of the shop that’s open afternoons in the summer.

“Huckleberry, Idaho and the color purple all go together,” Jill Kausen said about the shop’s featured items and gold-colored interior lined with many hints of huckleberry.

And, Lee Kausen added, “Wine was just a natural to go with” the bevy of gift baskets.

Another surprise came one day when the store’s former owner stopped in to see how things had progressed. Formerly the owner of the Christian bookseller, Sonshine Bookstore, Rosalie (Willis) Storment found some new friends in Possibilities, named after the New Testament proverb in Matthew 19:26: “With God, all things are possible.”

“It was just such an exciting day when I first went to Possibilities,” said Storment, 64, a Post Falls author and musician. “They have done a fabulous job with the store. It’s just something Coeur d’Alene needed.”

Though the path wasn’t always obvious and featured many twists and turns, the Kausens never questioned who was leading the way.

When they learned their shop formerly had housed a Christian bookstore, Jill Kausen said, “It was almost like confirmation that God did bring us here.”

Lee Kausen repeated that sentiment: “It’s just God’s grace.”