Who's Who-sday | Creighton Hilstad and the art of making space

There is a certain kind of person who turns a store into a refuge. Not a shop, exactly. Not a business in the strict sense of the word, but a place where people linger longer than they intended, where conversations unfold between candles and hand creams and where strangers exhale as they cross the threshold.

For Creighton Hilstad, owner of Henry Harrow in downtown Wenatchee, that transformation seems less like a business strategy than a natural extension of who he is.

Spend an hour with him and it becomes clear that everything in his life - the carefully wrapped purchases, the farm animals waiting at home, the Pride banners hanging in his windows and the flight school, PropFlying, that he co-owns with his husband - traces back to a simple philosophy.

"Just be kind," he says. "Even if they're coming in hot, let's just be kind."

He says it the way some people talk about religion.

Hilstad grew up in Seattle before the city became synonymous with tech wealth and rising skylines.

"Seattle was amazing," he says. "Growing up in Seattle in the '80s was amazing. Seattle was so cool back then."

His childhood was the kind that now feels almost archival.

"I had a normal childhood," he says. "Outside playing in the mud. Went outside in the morning, came back at dark."

The middle child between two brothers, Hilstad jokes that the birth order "explains a lot."

There is humor in the remark, but also a clue. Throughout the conversation, he moves easily between self-deprecation and confidence, storyteller and shopkeeper.

In high school, fashion and visual arts found him before retail did. He joined the swim team for a time but became captivated by visual communications, television production and modeling.

"I went into this whole visual arts world," he says. "And I just kind of stayed there."

That world eventually led him to the Bon Marché, the Northwest department store where he spent 19 years. The way Hilstad talks about the company borders on reverence.

"They cultivated people," he says. "I was cultivated to become a manager. I was cultivated to learn and to be a part of."

The lessons extended beyond sales floors and inventory sheets. He learned how to greet customers, solve problems and present a purchase with care. Retail, as he describes it, was never merely transactional.

"I always wanted to have my own store," he says. "But I also wanted to do things how I was taught."

That philosophy remains visible today at Henry Harrow, where hospitality feels less like a service model than a personal ethic.

In 2005, Hilstad opened his first store, Creighton Edward Home, in Issaquah's Gilman Village. It was a dream realized, built around many of the same product lines and aesthetic instincts that would later define Henry Harrow.

Then came New Jersey. His husband, Eddy Hahn, was transferred for work, and Hilstad did something he now laughs about with equal parts disbelief and exhaustion: He packed up an entire store and shipped it across the country.

"Never do that again," he says.

The venture lasted just under three years before the family returned to Washington. There were other chapters: Work as a sales representative, store management and the adoption of their son, Christopher. But woven through every career shift is the story of a family.

Hilstad met Hahn more than two decades ago through Match.com, back when online dating still carried a hint of novelty. The first phone conversation was memorable for one reason.

"I didn't understand much because his accent was so strong," Hilstad says, laughing.

Hahn, who is Hungarian, was nervous. Hilstad was skeptical. Then came dinner. A few days later, Hilstad left for a 12-day vacation.

"I was like, 'OK, well, I'll see you in 12 days if you're still around,'" Hilstad remembers.

He was.

The certainty arrived not in a dramatic moment but in a quiet realization.

"I was like, 'I'm in trouble,'" Hilstad recalls. "There is something about this person."

Within a week, they were seeing each other every day. More than 20 years later, they still are.

The family's next leap began with what was supposed to be a small cabin. Looking for a weekend retreat, Hilstad and Hahn started browsing properties east of the Cascades. The search escalated from a cabin to a larger cabin, then a house and eventually acreage. Then a property in Entiat appeared.

Two months later, they moved. Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.

"We didn't know a single person," Hilstad says.

The family spent much of those early years isolated on their farm, surrounded by open space and uncertainty. Today, the property hums with life: ducks, chickens, cows, cats, a horse and, recently, an unexpected visitor.

"Last week, we had a gray wolf," he says casually.

The farm became a place to put down roots. It also gave Hilstad time to dream again. He found himself thinking about another store. A small one, initially. Instead, Henry Harrow, named after the family dog, grew to occupy the entire main floor of its downtown building.

"I wasn't expecting what it is now," he says. "I never thought it could be what it is now."

What the store became surprised him. He thought he was opening a retail space. Instead, he became part of the community's emotional infrastructure.

"I set out to be a resource," he says. "But we're also important to the community. People come in here and feel safe."

The word surfaces repeatedly during the conversation: safe.

For Hilstad, safety is not political branding or marketing language. It is practical and tangible; a feeling someone experiences when walking through the door.

That conviction became particularly visible this year when Pride banners appeared across the storefront's windows instead of on light poles along Wenatchee Avenue. When other businesses declined to display them, Hilstad volunteered additional space.

"I will put up as many banners as you have," he recalls saying.

His reasoning was straightforward.

"I didn't put up 10 banners to be a political statement," he says. "I put up 10 banners because nine other people would not."

The response was immediate. Customers visited for the first time. Notes appeared beneath the door. Messages arrived expressing gratitude.

"People are telling us, 'Thank you for the banners,'" he says.

For Hilstad, the gesture was not about visibility for its own sake. It was about belonging. Years earlier, he had worried about how a business owned by two gay men raising a child might be received in a conservative region. Instead, he discovered something more complicated and, ultimately, more hopeful.

"We learned a lot about the community within the first year," he says. "There's a huge part that's not accepting, but there's an even bigger part that is."

When asked what he loves most about Wenatchee, the answer comes quickly.

"The scenery," he says.

Then comes a second answer.

"The people that we've met that are so kind and accepting."

It is an observation that reveals as much about him as it does about the city.

Beneath the stories of youth in Seattle, department store management, cross-country moves, adoption journeys, flight schools and farm chores, the defining characteristic of Creighton Hilstad may be his insistence on seeing possibility in people. He believes in communities, in welcoming strangers and in opening doors.

When asked if he could change one thing about Wenatchee, he pauses before settling on a simple wish.

"I would want people to just let people be people," Hilstad says.

Outside, downtown Wenatchee continues its daily rhythm. Inside Henry Harrow, customers browse shelves and exchange greetings. Outside town, ducks need feeding and cows need tending. A husband is teaching students to fly. A son is growing up.

And Hilstad, who once dreamed of owning his own store, is still doing what he set out to do all those years ago: creating a place where people feel seen and where kindness is not an aspiration but a daily practice.

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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 12:17 PM.