Space & Faders
Address: 85 Louise Avenue South
Telephone: 801-487-2342
Website: spaceandfaders.com
District: South Salt Lake
“This has been in my head for thirty years. I just didn’t know I was already in the building I needed.” Charles Thorpe has always been about building things: stages, spaces, and opportunities. A stage manager by trade with a lifelong love of music and the people who make it, Charles has spent decades behind the scenes, ensuring the lights came up and the show went on. But what he truly dreamed of was something bigger - a place where creativity in all its forms could thrive under one roof. That dream became Space & Faders.
Charles started producing shows as a teenager in Pennsylvania, organizing concerts for friends in church basements, parking lots, and any empty pavilion he could find. “I didn’t play an instrument. I just knew how to build a platform so others could,” he explained. That instinct to create space for music, for art, and for people, never left him.
While in high school, Charles was planning to study elementary education and went on to attend Penn State for a year in that field. “But I dropped out because I didn’t want to be a teacher and all of those things,” he said. “Now I’m a stage manager - which is the same exact psychology.”
Shortly after leaving college, Charles got a call from a childhood friend, someone he had not seen since junior high. “He was like, ‘Hey, do you want to go to Salt Lake?’ I asked what was out there. He said, ‘I don’t know. If you don’t like it, move back.’” The friend's dad paid Charles $150 for his mountain bike. “It was like a mercy thing; he didn’t really want the bike.” And that was enough money at the time for Charles to make the move.
After years of working in a number of clubs, he then graduated to more prestigious places such as Sandy, and over two decades at Red Butte Garden. Charles began saving for a building where he could bring his long-held vision to life. Ironically, he was already in it. He had been subleasing a space where his son’s band rehearsed and where he started experimenting with recording and podcasting setups. Eventually, he realized that this was the place.
When the pandemic hit, Charles dove in. He took delivery of his first load of lumber in February 2020. By March, the world had shut down, but Charles kept building. Alone in the warehouse, with only a hammer for company that he named Stanley, he began constructing Space & Faders - room by room, idea by idea. And what an idea it is.
The sprawling South Salt Lake facility is a modular, ever-evolving creative compound with approximately twenty rooms. It is designed for artists, musicians, photographers, podcasters, content creators, and even local businesses looking for team-building experiences. Every inch reflects Charles’s hands-on approach.
At Space & Faders, there are plug-and-play music rehearsal spaces - each with a unique theme, name, and full equipment setup (PAs, microphones, and gear). The “Velvet Room” is as plush as its name suggests. The “Boom Room” is a bring-your-own-gear space. “Grayskull,” named after He-Man’s castle, channels full Viking-metal energy.
What would cost $150/hour to rent similar space in L.A. runs just $35 here. “Nothing is monetarily driven,” Charles emphasized. “I want young bands who’ve never had access to quality space to experience what it’s like to play somewhere built for them. This is about creating art, not collecting rent.”
Some of the spaces double as green rooms, content studios, or private party venues. There is a full photography / video studio with customizable lighting and backdrops. The courtyard, hedged with faux greenery, is part of the photo aesthetic, but it can also become a pop-up event space, complete with DJ booth, bar, and modular lounges. Every space can be flipped in thirty minutes.
There are also plans for a second building - an industrial steel structure next door that would allow Space & Faders to expand its capabilities for touring acts needing serious lighting and PA support. “That’s where this goes full circle,” Charles said. “That’s the final level.”
The place already hums with life. Charles’s son helps manage the business. Teachers and artists cycle through daily. They host monthly “drum sheds” - free, three-hour jam sessions that anyone can join, and team-building drumming classes for companies, sports teams, and community groups. “Lawyers hit the drums the hardest,” Charles joked. “I think they’re working through something.”
There is also a podcasting studio, a streaming-ready content space for radio performances or Dungeons & Dragons livestreams, and future plans to take the drum experiences on the road. The entire space is meant to be shared and eventually replicated in other cities, with each version reflecting the local music and arts culture.
“I’ve had big names ask to rehearse here but I wasn’t quite ready,” he said. “That’s why I’m building. That’s what this is about: making something worthy of them. And of everyone else.”
Charles built ninety percent of Space & Faders himself, in the dark days of the pandemic, when no one knew what tomorrow might look like. And now? Now it is a creative beacon. “I don’t ever know what people are going to think of this place but if they don’t like it, I’m not bothered. It’s not for everybody… even though it is for everyone.”
