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Photo by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Cynthia St. Pierre, owner and stylist at St. Pierre Salon, Day Spa and Academy, laughs as she talks with a customer at the store in Salem, Virginia. In January 2006, St. Pierre lost her beauty salon to fire for the second time in three years.

More than a year ago, Cynthia St. Pierre found herself standing on North College Avenue in downtown Salem having what must have been a devastatingly real bout of deja vu.

The air was thick with smoke and the red lights from the fire engines shone on the blackened windows of her business, St. Pierre Salon, Day Spa and Academy. It was the second time in three years that her salon had been damaged by fire.

The first fire was in December 2002. The blaze, which originated in an antique fireplace, left St. Pierre with about $10,000 in damages to equipment and antique furniture in the waiting room. She and her staff worked temporarily at Mane Street Salon in Salem.

She recently recalled her reason for not getting renter's insurance after that fire: What were the odds that she would lose a business to fire twice?

St. Pierre, 45, remembers crying the night of Jan. 2, 2006, when a second fire caused more than $20,000 in damage to her business.

"St. Pierre Salon is my life and it's my passion," she said.

The tears gave way to urgency. She wanted to act quickly to re-establish her business and maintain her clientele.

The next day, St. Pierre and her staff set up temporarily in a former student's salon in Salem. St. Pierre also began looking for a new location for her business, preferably one not too far from College Avenue so she could retain her clientele.

Within a week, she had learned about available property on Salem's Main Street, almost across the street from the previous location. Within a month she was back in business.

A strong woman

Anyone who thinks she could be stopped by fire doesn't know Cynthia St. Pierre.

"I'm very strong-willed and very determined," the Roanoke resident said. "I might not be doing hair, but this name will be up."

St. Pierre has been styling hair since she was 19. She pursued an education on her own, training under Roanoke hairstylist Nancy DeHart and at the Vidal Sassoon academy in Santa Monica, Calif. She went to the London Expo in England, and she has trained to be an educator with Rusk International.

"I started very small in a small salon in Roanoke," she said.

She started St. Pierre Inc. in 1994, when she was a single mother of four and working alone. She opened the academy after a friend and fellow stylist asked for training in hairstyling. That friend, Cynthia Oliver of Roanoke, is now a master stylist at the salon.

All of the salon's stylists are personally trained by St. Pierre and earn state certification in her academy. For years, St. Pierre juggled being a business owner, hair stylist and educator.

Oliver remembers when St. Pierre broke her pelvis in three places but worked at the shop anyway. For six weeks, an assistant would pick St. Pierre up from her home, take her to the day spa and help her out of the car. St. Pierre couldn't walk around, but she would cut hair while seated.

"She's tough," Oliver said.

St. Pierre is known for keeping up with the latest hairstyles and emphasizing the importance of education, Oliver said.

St. Pierre eventually hired her friend and businesswoman Shae Baxter as salon manager.

Thirty-five people have graduated from St. Pierre's academy, including two graduating this month. Many of those graduates have gone on to open salons in the Roanoke Valley, including Onyx Premiere Hair Studio in Salem.

St. Pierre tries to give back to the community. Clients who donate hair to Locks of Love, a nonprofit that gives hairpieces to children with medical hair loss, receive a free haircut.

"We've come a long way in a short amount of time," she said.

Up from the ashes

Painted above an doorway of the day spa is, "We went through the fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance."

St. Pierre said she "claimed" the verse from Psalm 66:12 after having to fire some of her stylists. But the verse also symbolizes "financially coming through the fire," St. Pierre said.

Two days after the 2006 fire, St. Pierre, Baxter and the other employees temporarily set up shop at Angela Dillard's salon, Diamond's Cutting Edge, in Salem. Dillard was one of St. Pierre's students.

A week after the second fire, St. Pierre closed on a house at 516 Main St. in Salem, near the busy intersection of College Avenue and Main Street.

"We were blessed to get this building," St. Pierre said.

Employees' families helped the women prepare the salon for opening. Many in the Salem community also helped, St. Pierre and Baxter said. "They saw what happened to us, and their hearts were in the right place," Baxter said.

"That was incredible," St. Pierre said. "We came in here with nothing."

St. Pierre, Baxter and Oliver immediately got to work. Oliver, an interior designer, had decorated the College Avenue salon Some of the furniture from the salon was salvageable and is being used in the new salon.

"We had a lot of people depending on us," St. Pierre said.

"This is a house and it's a home, and they feel that here," St. Pierre said about the new location.

She started with three hair designers but now has 10 working at the salon. St. Pierre and Baxter said the salon sees at least 140 new clients each month even though she doesn't advertise. She soon will have another six students.

St. Pierre compared the physical damage of her previous businesses to a forest fire, which can be good for plant life.

"We were burnt, but we came back greener," she said.