Emily Paine Carter

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Hats off to our local beauty salons -- but not for the usual reasons. Maybe I'm adding a new twist: Have you noticed how many hairdressers set up shop in our preservation-worthy old buildings?

Salon owners seem to be able to visualize the potential for loveliness in their future surroundings, as well as in their clients. Both heads and buildings get spruced up.

Consider these shops, starting with the two fine old places bravely holding their own on Salem's West Main Street:

• Hair Designs Unlimited: 1236 W. Main St. (389-7699), next to Pizza Hut. I have to give belated thanks to whatever visionary saved the old Foutz home from demolition (yes, newcomers, West Main Street once was lined with spacious old homes); a bicycle shop added a showroom in front and stayed several years in the cheery yellow house with the green tin roof and green-shuttered windows.

• Belle of the Ball: 1961 W. Main St. (389-9906). This is the sweet little gingerbready-cottage near Wal-Mart ... now there's a contrast. The decor inside is pretty darned precious, too.

• On Salem's eastern front is St. Pierre Salon & Academy (389-7400). Following last year's fire at its previous North College Avenue location, the salon moved to 516 E. Main St. (formerly housing Court Corrections) in one of those really cool old houses across from Longwood Park.

• Style One (387-4956) has been remodeled at its 731 S. College Ave. site (across from Andrew Lewis Middle School). Its false front -- taller than the back of the building -- reminds me of when Main Street resembled the set of "The Last Picture Show."

• Carrington's Salon (444-4247) recently moved just across the street from its previous location above R.M. Johnson jewelers. It's now at 7 S. College Ave. -- the original R.M. Johnson shop.

• One of my favorite historical buildings houses the beauty salon of two of Salem's favorite young women, owner Sophia Semones Whitlow and hair designer Carla Grace Semones, Whitlow's sister. Salon Capelli (375-0789) opened last year at 211 College Ave., across from College Lutheran Church.

You might recall the wide range of previous inhabitants of the Victorian building, such as a dance studio and Chris Gladden's antiquarian book shop. Carla recalled reading in one of the Salem history books that the building had even been a fire station.

Just as such buildings change proprietors and women change their hairstyles, salons beget other salons and hairdressers change addresses. Carla mentioned that three Capelli employees came from Mane Street (now gone, but it used to be on the second floor of the former Salem Theater): Cicely Mann, Vicki Keyser and Wendy Trail. Previous Mane Street owner and stylist Stephanie Arthur Hunt worked at Capelli for a while, then moved to A Cut Above in a practically new building on Salem's truck route (aka Fourth Street), next to Papa John's.

So, look around town and find other businesses that preserve old buildings. And thanks to you folks who can see the beauty and charm in aging structures -- both architectural and human. We so love those beauty makeover stories.