Mother, daughter set out to warm homes with Caldi Caldi

The Desert Sun &bull February 7, 2010

Kelly Burt and her daughter Briana Burt DeAztlan opened Caldi Caldi, a fine home accessories store in Old Town La Quinta, at the end of November just as the cold air hit the valley.

And the Coachella Valley mother-daughter duo hopes their new business venture will warm desert homes, making them chic and cozy.

The store's name means “warm, warm” in Italian — a phrase DeAztlan remembers fondly from a visit to Sicily last year.

“When we started talking about a name, I remembered what this meant and thought about how a home should be warm — and how the location that we're in is warm — and it just sort of fit,” DeAztlan said.

Now the two hope to become the premier spot for those looking to bring that warm, welcoming feeling into their homes with that special touch of distinctive elegance.

“We really wanted to have unique pieces that you can't just get on the Internet or that you can't go to the mall and find,” Burt said.

Items in the store are influenced by DeAztlan's experience working for an interior design firm in New York, though she said she had to “edit” items down to fit the desert climate.

“And being from the desert, I think we had a good insight on what we'd like to have here,” DeAztlan said, adding that both she and her mother were born and raised in the Coachella Valley.

This is DeAztlan and Burt's first venture in home accessories, though the Burt family is known for its entrepreneurship in the desert, with a landscaping firm and plant rental agency.

With DeAztlan as an interior designer and her mother's taste in such fine home accessories as Murano glass chandeliers, the idea of melding the two evolved.

DeAztlan said she particularly noticed a need in the valley after redecorating her mother's home led them to purchase items online or out of town.

The two hope to attract customers from the western end of the valley and beyond with a goal to possibly expand.

“Our goal is to get the store as successful as it possibly can be and have a good model to possibly open others,” DeAztlan said.

“But we'll see. We do really want to keep it feeling personal and intimate.”