Hexe Haus Closing After 35 Years Of Building Witchy Community In Edgewater

EDGEWATER — Hexe Haus has hosted lively discussions on everything from aliens to alternate dimensions every Wednesday night for the last three years. 

“It’s kind of like a support group for witches,” said the metaphysical shop’s co-owner Dayna Garcia. 

Now these discussions will need to find a new home, as the longtime gathering place for pagans, brujas and the spiritually curious will close its doors in Edgewater at the end of July or early August after 35 years in business. 

Over its tenure, Hexe Haus has been more than a place to buy candles and incense, said Garcia. 

“I would say it’s a witchcraft and pagan community center disguised as a retail store,” Garcia said. “The merchandise just supports the mission, but the community was always the point.”

Tanya R. has been coming to Hexe Haus since 2018 and began joining the gatherings last year. The store’s closure means losing one of her go-to third spaces, she said.

“It’s a place that is not home and is not work, that you just kind of show up and develop these additional relationships with other people, almost like this extended family,” she said. 

Mae, 24, a volunteer at Hexe Haus, started attending the discussions about a year ago. She even met her partner Brandon Sosa, 35, last June at one of the shop’s recurring Ouija board nights. 

“At the time, I was trying to get over my ex,” said Mae. 

“She was doing a bunch of hexes and I was talking sh-t,” Sosa added. 

Mae declined to give her last name — she was recently expelled from her Christian church after members of the congregation learned she practiced witchcraft, specifically pre-colonial, Filipino magic, she said.

“I really found a family [at Hexe Haus], who, even though they’re not my blood, they just accepted me for who I am. It wasn’t just Dayna and Brandon, but it was also everyone else in this community too,” said Mae. 

Uptown resident Rajja Reed, 37, has been coming to the shop several times a month for the last six years. On Wednesday, he was stocking up on candles for his small business as a spiritual worker and tarot reader. 

“It’s very sad that they’re closing because they have been really good to me,” said Reed. 

‘It’s Not A Death, It’s A Transition’

Despite the shop’s closure, Chicago’s pagan community is growing, said Garcia. She attributes that to magic’s popularity on TikTok and more sources for metaphysical education moving online. 

“The challenge is building sustainable places where the interest can gather,” said Garcia. 

In 2024, there were 19 other metaphysical stories in Chicago, according to the Chicago Reader. 

Garcia, 32, began visiting the shop with her mother while growing up in Mayfair. 

“My mother, even before she was pregnant with me, she used to just come into the shop and it made her feel safe, made her feel a sense of community,” said Garcia. 

In high school she started working there as a volunteer, cleaning the litter box for the store’s feline familiar, she said. She took over as manager in 2021 and became owner in 2024. 

Hexe Haus is actually the third incarnation of the business. Jack Armstrong opened the business in 1989 as Aurum Solis Bookstore. After Armstrong died in 2004, Ken Kwilosc took over and renamed the business Alchemy Arts. 

In 2023, Kwilosc developed health issues that made running the business unsustainable. 

It would have closed then had Garcia not stepped in. Legal troubles related to Kwilosc’s health prevented the direct sale of the business, said Garcia, so she started Hexe Haus in 2024 as an extension of Alchemy Arts. 

Over the past several months, Garcia noticed a dramatic decline in foot traffic, she said. Eventually the numbers stopped supporting the costs of operating a physical storefront.

“The challenge wasn’t that there wasn’t an interest in witchcraft or paganism or spirituality,” said Garcia. “The challenge was maintaining enough consistent in-person traffic to support a brick-and-mortar location.

“It wasn’t one bad month, it was a sustained change in customer behavior.”

While the store is closing, the community she has built through Hexe Haus will continue, she said. In April she started the International Pagan Society, a nonprofit dedicated to creating educational opportunities and community events for the pagan community. 

“It’s not a death, it’s a transition,” said Garcia. “The physical location may be closed, but the spirit is going to fully live on.”

The store is holding a 50 percent off liquidation sale. More information can be found here.