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The Haven Barbershop: Turchetta has big plans for his business

LOCK HAVEN -- The Haven Barbershop has made its debut by way of a local barber.

With six years of experience, and receiving his barber license a year ago, Kyle Turchetta has set out to start a barbershop of his own.

Having previously worked for The Craft Barber, he learned the tricks of the trade as a barber and garnered experience there. Now Turchetta's own place, The Haven Barbershop, is open for business. Having a family with three young children, and dreams of one day having his kids work with him, were the driving forces to set out on his own.

"I've always wanted to do something of my own. I think it was a combination of family and just wanting to be my own boss at the same time," he said. "I have three young kids… I'd like to give them the opportunity someday to work with me in the shop. Also financially, it was a little better to help out my family."

Turchetta began cutting hair roughly four years into his time with The Craft Barber. Through the first two years, it was learning, hair sweeping and other odds and ends, he said. Once the four year mark hit, Turchetta said he started to get into the cutting aspect.

The Haven Barbershop is located in a space inside of Moriarty-Dutcavich Funeral Home. Turchetta came into ownership of the space due to help by the funeral home's director, Zach Hanna. Prior to becoming a barber, Turtchetta worked for the funeral home and due to his friendship with Hanna, the space came together.

"Before I was going to be a barber, I was going to be a funeral director… I really like the interaction with people; making them feel good," he explained. "You can do that with funeral directing just in a different way. I was working here, it just got to be a lot with having a young family, so then I shifted to cutting hair."

Hanna is moving into Walker Funeral Home and the space became available. He offered it to Turchetta, though it was a hard decision for him to accept and leave The Craft Barber.

"We went back and forth with it for a couple months, trying to figure out if we're going to do this, how are we going to do this, what rooms we are going to do it in. We settled on this space," Turchetta said. "He (Hanna) gave me an opportunity that I couldn't say no to."

The Haven Barbershop has two main spaces, the main front room for hair cutting and a carpeted lounge area. Eventually Turchetta plans to make the front room as the adult shop and use the other as the kids area.

"My idea of the shop is to have this front room as the adult shop. For instance, on a Thursday or Friday night, if there are two guys in here that want to have a beer or hang out, they can do that in here. If a mom or a dad brought in their kids, they can go into the other room -- it's carpeted and kid friendly -- everyone can still feel comfortable," he said.

Turchetta also has plans to add mounted TVs and decorations in the space. Hair products and merchandise such as t-shirts, stickers and more will be available to customers.

Eventually Turchetta would like to add another chair in the shop.

"I would love to have one of my kids -- cause you can get your license at 16 -- to eventually start cutting hair. But I am not going to force them -- but definitely at some point add some other barbers into the mix," he said.

As of now, The Haven Barbershop is open Monday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursday and Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Turchetta wanted to help out night shift workers in the area with an earlier based schedule.

"I really wanted to play that 7 a.m. card and I've always felt bad for -- we have a lot of factories around here -- people who got off at seven and wanted to get their hair cut and have to wait around for an hour and a half, two hours. My thought process was how can I help them out," he explained.

Times are subject to change, he added.

The Haven Barbershop prices are as followed: regular haircuts are $20, skin fades are $25, beard trims are $15, haircuts with a beard trim are $30, hot towel shaves are $20 and haircuts for kids ages 13 or younger are $16.

To celebrate his first two weeks open, Turchetta is raffling off an autographed souvenir mini football, signed by Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford. Any appointment made with Turchetta will be put in for the raffle this Saturday, April 1.

"This has been the best week of my life. It is a really cool to have the support of the community," Turchetta said.

The Haven Barbershop is located in the first space to the right side inside Moriarty-Dutcavich Funeral Home, located at 112 E. Church St. in Lock Haven.