The TV personality and boss of the Charleston Empire, Leva Bonaparte, had an interview with PEOPLE where she shared her concept of balancing her business, motherhood, and marriage. Leva has excelled in setting a clear example of how one can have success in marriage, business, and motherhood.
Leva co-owns restaurants and nightclubs with her husband, Lamar Bonaparte-Mesu, Bourbon N’ Bubbles, Lamar’s sporting club, and Republic Garden and Lounge, which serve as a setting for the reality series “Southern Charms” that airs on Bravo.
Leva, after being a recurring cast member of “Southern Charm” for six seasons, became an all-time castmate in season 7, followed by getting cast in Southern Hospitality. Both Leva and Lamar Bonaparte have created a business life that brings them a net worth of $3.6 million.
How does Leva Bonaparte balance the empire she has built?
The entrepreneur has a big screen that shows all activities happening around Charleston Nightclub and to manage her business, along with keeping an eye on what her employees are doing while working.
Though Leva hardly needs to keep track of the surveillance as she seems to have an understanding bond with her employee, according to her, everyone is an open book there and they all tend to know everything about each other.
Last month, during a visit to Republic, Leva was asked by people how she manages her relationship with her employees. She said, “”Even though I’m the boss, they all come to me with their problems.” As she’s a mother who works smoothly, she doesn’t mind it because she happily shares her opinion.
Further, Leva added, “Everyone will tell you; I advise to my demise, so I will say what I think. You just have to take it with a grain of salt and know that ‘Oh, she cares about me.” by watching “Southern Hospitality” season two. By the end of the day, when she lies on the bed, she feels if she wants to become able to make hard decisions that turn out to be right for the people.
While sharing her milestones in becoming a successful businessman, Leva said, “There aren’t a lot of women owners in the nightclub industry, and I take that seriously.” Furthermore, Leva mentions how much responsibility she has to carry while doing her dream job.
While sharing this with people, she said, “It’s important I create a safe environment for my employees; that I’m protecting them while also working hard, leading by example, and encouraging them to actualize a part of their dream.”
It’s a difficult task as she has to maintain this difficult balance, and it gets lonely sometimes, but she’s been working her entire life to get to this point, which brings her inspiration and motivation.
Leva Bonaparte and her personal life
Originally from Canada, she came to Charleston 20 years ago after her family opened a multinational software company in the city. Leva had to spend months there over the next 5 years while she had extended stays in South America and Canada branches due to business.
While sharing about her life back then in the South Carolina locale, she said, “Charleston was different; it was a lot smaller, a lot less diverse, and not as developed business-wise.” Leva further said that it was not giving her a big city feeling, and everyone around here knew everyone their whole lives, so it was a lot harder to make friends.
She also added, “I didn’t really know where I fit in here. The thing that brought the biggest change in her life was that one spring night in Charleston when her friends dragged her out for a belated birthday party because that was when she met Lamar.
According to Lava, it wasn’t love at first sight, as she wasn’t too friendly but instead quite mean to him, as she felt everything about Lamar was cute and he was advanced in romance. Later on, Leva felt that Lamar could be a good business contact as he was in real estate development, and she was very interested in learning more about that back in Canada, but the tax laws were so different.
Leva also recalled that she was looking him up on her BlackBerry, and Lamar asked her, “Are you googling me?” and she went on like, “Yeah, bro, I am!” But actually, the card of business turned into the card of marriage for Leva and Lamar, as after dating for 5 years, they got married in 2013.
On getting married to Lamar, Leva said, “We’re very similar in a lot of ways; we’re both big nerds who love to learn. You’ll never not catch one of us reading or listening to a podcast or something, trying to find a new thing.” and all these things drew them closer.
Leva marks that she’s an ‘Alpha Female’, and that’s something that not everybody understood about her, but Lamar did. According to Leva, Lamar has a compassion for being a woman in business that most other men don’t, which makes her feel seen.
During the start, it was difficult for the couple to have balance in the relationship, as if they had a conflict, it seemed like a tsunami met a tornado. But since there’s an understanding between them, they overcome all the barriers and provide backbone support for each other.
Leva’s motherhood is something she is emotionally very attached to and has also brought a lot of experience into her life. She had infertility issues, and after years of struggle, she finally gave birth to a son, Lamar ‘Little’ Bonaparte Jr., on January 29, 2018, and motherhood had become her top priority.
She shared that motherhood was like a blessing in disguise for her. She never took anything for granted. The worst days or the hard days, whatever it was, at the end she is glad for her little guy to be here.
Leva Bonaparte’s milestones of success to build an empire
Lamar and Leva were nightlife ventures, and they had a restaurant scene that came about during the real estate slump called “Party with Purpose,” which helped them raise money with no profits by throwing local mixers.
They used to go out on Wednesday or Thursday night to different bars with a bunch of their friends, and they’d donate at the door. As Leva said, “’Everyone’s going to drink; they might as well drop $5 for charity anyway; what’s the big deal?” Eventually, the number of members in the parties grew to 200 or 300 a night.
And this is how they got the idea of what if they had their own place where they did the same thing, and that is how the couple started taking the first step towards their today-built empire. Despite having no idea about the industry, they still took the risk.
They were not sommeliers, foodies, or chefs, but they were businesspeople, so they just focused on making sure that they hired the right number of people who made sense and then YouTubed their way through the rest of it.
Due to their confidence and proper planning and hard work, the pair, other than Republic, own three restaurant and nightclub business properties on Charleston’s popular King Street: Mesu, Bourbon N’ Bubbles, and their recently owned place, Lamar’s Sports Club.
Leva’s years of immense hard work made her name a recognized personality among the business society, but this wasn’t it. In 2020, she levelled up her resume by adding the new work title of becoming a TV personality as she joined Southern Charm season 7.
Followed by another milestone of success, Southern Hospitality, which airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on Bravo and has the Republic Garden and Lounge as its setting. The one key element that has made Southern Hospitality a hit is that it highlights the diversity of the Republic’s staff.
The success of Southern hospitality has made the Republic more popular than ever. Leva knows clearly that she has more goals to hit for her business as well as the show, and she has a dream of achieving more and more to set a vital example for the world.
