Sam Mallouf and Laura Stratton really like spending time together — so much so that the couple, who got married last year, decided to start a business in Longmont, not far from their home.

A new music endeavor, Butterscotch Studios, 620 Kimbark St., Longmont, is centered around instrument lessons and songwriting instruction for students of all ages, with diverse and creative constellations of unique additional offerings, like a podcasting seminar, summer camps for kids, ensemble workshops and even a Wednesday “Grown Up and Me” music class for little ones.

“We wanted to find something where we could work together,” Stratton said. “It was our dream. We commute here in the morning and then go home, and we talk about Butterscotch all the time, and it’s great.”

Stratton, a Boulder native who went to high school in Telluride, is a co-founder of the well-known local folk-rock band Foxfeather and a former employee at Harmony Music House Boulder. She became friends with Mallouf (who is from California) in 2016, and they merged their talents to create Butterscotch last November, just two months after their wedding.

“I was doing grant work and Laura was looking at real estate [as a career],” Mallouf said.

“We were just really disheartened by some of the jobs out there and being overqualified for things and not getting any callbacks. We were just, like, ‘Well, what makes up happy?’ That’s when we started talking about this.”

Butterscotch Studios came together astonishingly fast; the couple signed the lease on a beautiful old two-story downtown Longmont house in mid-December and opened it as a bustling, welcoming collective in February, not only offering lessons and workshops but scheming to bring the Boulder County music community together with indoor and backyard concerts and markets.

“It all fell together so naturally and perfectly,” Stratton said. “The universe had just aligned.”

She said that once they found the charming location at just a block from 6th Avenue and Main Street, “we were, like, well …now I guess we’re doing this, and we’re doing it now, and we’re doing it at 620 Kimbark.”

“We really wanted to be downtown,” Mallouf said, “and we wanted to be in a house. Our big focus is community. We’re a music studio that also is an art collective.”

The duo really is a fit not just for a marriage but for Butterscotch to thrive, as Stratton has nearly a lifetime of experience in music, from being a musician to teaching, booking, promoting and being a beloved part of the Colorado music community, and Mallouf is an impressive and productive force when it comes to organizing, brainstorming and, well, bringing ideas to life seemingly overnight.

“It’s been really great to see people just come to us with ideas,” Mallouf said, “and we’ve created this space, and then people are, like, ‘I want to do this; I want to host a podcast thing; I want to run a vocal workshop — a therapeutic vocal workshop.’ Which was completely sold out. Which was fabulous. There’s a wide range of things that we offer.”

One of the great things Butterscotch offers is just a place for creative people, perhaps people who don’t fit in elsewhere, to walk in and play piano, for instance, or sit down on the couch and play ukulele.

“This has given us something that we feel like we can give to the community,” Stratton said. “It’s for us. It’s our job, it’s our business. But it’s also something where we can bring people together where they can feel safe, especially for the queer community, and just really people who maybe don’t feel like they fit in anywhere else. There’s plenty of weird people here, and we want them. We love them.”

Upcoming events

Here are a few events Butterscotch Studios has on tap. The studio also hosts bluegrass and jazz ensemble workshops as well as kids’ summer camps. Find out more at butterscotchstudios.com.

• May 4: Beginner’s Jam

• May 6: Group open sing for women and non-binary folks of all ages

• May 16: Incense making

• May 17: Foxfeather and Monica Marie LaBonte in concert

• May 18: Open mic with Antonio Lopez

• May 25: Jazz on the front porch with Charles Blenzig

• June 8: Backyard Pride Bazaar

• June 14: Morgan Harris and Antonio Lopez in concert

• June 20: Edie Carey and Sarah Sample in concert

• June 27: Tim Ostdiek and Jenny Balagna in concert