Tranquility Within healing center credited with pioneering sector in Patchogue closes

In March 2014, Dawn Schultzer found herself in a parking lot on her lunch break. As she stared at the sky, contemplating the shape of her life, she realized she had a new dream.

The accountant of 20 years quit her job the following month to open Tranquility Within, a holistic healing center in downtown Patchogue that permanently closed its doors on Feb. 16. Schultzer died of cancer in 2020, just a few years after opening, but the business lived on thanks to the efforts of family and staff. Following the center's closure, her family sold the building and planned to close on the sale this month.  

The current owner, Annie Southard, still organizes spiritual retreats and weekly community meditations. But she doesn't plan to reopen Tranquility Within at a physical location in the near future.

"The foot traffic is not there during the winter," she said of the Patchogue location. That, coupled with taking over her husband's business after his death this year, led her to scale back.

Southard discovered Tranquility Within years ago, after fleeing her second day as a paralegal in Manhattan. That is where she met Schultzer, who encouraged her to pursue her passion as a yoga teacher.

"I quit my job that day, and I opened my first yoga studio a month later," said Southard, who started to work at Tranquility Within after Schultzer died. 

The wellness center was housed in a unique space, with heated floors and designated spaces for retail, yoga, child care and other wellness practices. The building, which is much longer than it is wide, is a conglomeration of different eras, with sections built in the 1890s, the 1940s and the 1960s, architect Paul Cataldo recalled.

Schultzer told him, while designing the space, that she wanted people to “swoon” when they walked in, he said. “I think we achieved that.”

Customers and staff fondly describe the storefront as a community, a way to connect with like-minded people and focus on their personal healing journeys.

“Dawn’s dream was to help others find their inner peace and happiness. And that’s what she accomplished,” said Judy Slipian, 79, of Yaphank. Slipian is Schultzer’s mother and helped her daughter finance the building in 2015.

“The store just became like a community,” she said. “It was really beautiful. And Dawn got her dream.”

Kelly Simon, 34, of Patchogue, grew up in Florida. When she found Tranquility Within, she was new to the area. That is where she found a community that supported her through her first two pregnancies.

Yoga at Tranquility's studio was actually what helped induce labor for her first two daughters, she recalled.

“It made Patchogue home for me. I felt like an outsider until I found that sort of belonging through like-minded people,” she said.

The business also set the tone for the growing health and wellness industry in Patchogue, said David Kennedy, executive director of the business improvement district for the Village of Patchogue.

Soon after Schultzer opened Tranquility a little more than seven years ago, there was local growth in that type of business model, he said, with at least a dozen alternative health and wellness practices following suit in the village.

“That business really helped solidify a special community,” he said. “The spirit of what they created is still very strong in Patchogue.”

Selling the building has been an emotional experience, said David Schultzer, Dawn’s husband.

“I brought my kids there and we all came in for a last visit,” he said. “We laid on the floor in the yoga room and we talked.”

He set up a table with photos of Dawn in the front window as a way for people to say goodbye. When he is at the building, people walking past stop to tell him stories about his wife and the studio.

“That’s the real sadness of losing this place,” he said, “knowing now a lot of these people have to find a different place that makes you feel the same way.”

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers personal finance and affordability for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.