The Massage Place opened yesterday in the former Gavri Med Spa at 15113 Sunset, across from Ralphs. The 1,500-sq.-ft. space has six massage rooms and a room for facials. This is owner Michael Marylander’s seventh store on the Westside, joining locations in Brentwood, Santa Monica, Venice and West Los Angeles. Additionally, he has licensed two stores in the San Fernando Valley and one in Pasadena. ’Many of the clients at our store on Montana are from the Palisades and urged us to open here,’ Marylander said. ‘We offer high-quality professional massages at affordable prices in a clean environment.’ A one-hour massage is $47 and customers have a choice of Swedish, deep tissue, Thai, sports, Shiatsu, reflexology and pregnancy massages. ’The price is the same regardless of the type of massage, and each one is a full hour,’ Marylander said. ‘Many of our competitors say their massage is an hour, but it’s actually only 50 to 55 minutes.’ Marylander keeps his prices low because he avoids the cost of a ‘spa atmosphere,’ such as saunas and steam rooms, and focuses on massages. The formula is working. ’The store on Montana averages 60 massages a day,’ Marylander said. He has 185 massage therapists working for him and he expects that 20 to 30 will be working (part-time) in the Palisades. ’He’ll do well here because there’s a demand,’ said Palisadian Bharti Sawheny, one of Marylander’s clients on Montana. She walked by the new store last Thursday and stopped to say hello when she saw the owner. She asked him if a coupon for 10 massages that she had purchased on Montana could be used at this store. ’Yes, gift certificates and packages can be used at any store,’ said Marylander, who told Sawheny about a Valentine’s special that is good from February 1-14 and includes three massages for $126. Marylander started looking for a space in Palisades after he noticed that one out of every 15 clients at his San Vicente and Montana locations gave Pacific Palisades as their hometown. With the help of local realtor Greg Pawlik, he found the empty space. ’There was free parking in the back and the place was already built with individual rooms, even though some of the room sizes weren’t ideal,’ said Marylander, who saved money by not having to gut the store; instead he simply sanded and painted the walls and installed new flooring and lighting. Marylander, who grew up in Encino, graduated from Loyola Marymount in 1998 with a business degree. Unsure what he wanted to do, he went to Emperor’s College to become a massage therapist. He opened his first Massage Place on Abbot Kinney in 2002, followed by stores in Venice in January 2003, on Montana in November 2003, Ocean Park in 2004, Brentwood in 2005 and West L.A. in 2008. ’I’m able to manage them [stores] effectively because they are all close and I can visit each store each day,’ Marylander said. Their close proximity also allows masseuses freedom to work at different stores. Marylander and his wife Natsima live in Marina del Rey and have three children: Bank, 15, Benz, 14, and Joseph, 3. His sister Julie runs the West Los Angeles store (at Pico and Overland) and his mom, Carol, who used to work in her husband’s marketing research company, is helping with her son’s marketing. Call (310) 459-3400 or visit themassageplaces.com.
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