By Liz Moomey
liz.moomey@salisburypost.com

SALISBURY — Every year, Shella Igo gives her staff at Greystone Salon & Spa a word. This year, it was persevere.

Perseverance is fitting after transforming a vacant building on North Main Street into the second location of Greystone.

“In 2011, our word was hope,” Igo said. “I want to give you guys hope, and we want to give our clients hope that things are going to get better. At the time, things were bad. The next year, the word was faith because faith is the things hoped for, not seen. And then love was my next year. This past year, the word was persevere. You’ve got to keep going even though there were some bumps in the road.”

After putting in new walls, flooring, plumbing and electrical fixtures, the building at 120 N. Main St. became a salon and spa like something out of New York.

“My vision was I wanted something that people would come in and … not only would it be an upscale atmosphere but it would be a friendly atmosphere too,” Igo said. “I wanted it to be warm and upscale.”

She said it contrasts with her first location on Klumac Road, which will always be her favorite Greystone location.

“The other one is more busy. The music is different,” she said. “I wanted something that was more, not just relaxing, but (customers) felt calmness. They felt like they could really get in a zone of meditation and relaxation. Everything is feng shui and just flows.”

She said she was inspired to make the new location feel more like New York from reading W newspaper as a teenager, flipping through the pages and dreaming of moving to New York. 

“I just want to bring a little New York to Salisbury,” Igo said. “I wanted something when people come in, I want to see their reaction of, ‘Wow, this makes me feel like I’m not in Salisbury.’ When I first opened, I had the videos on people who walked in. One lady came in, her and her husband, they just got back from New York the day before. She walked in and said, ‘I feel like I’m still in New York.’ I saw, ‘Aww, you just gave me the best compliment,’ because that’s what I wanted. I wanted that reaction.”

The downtown Greystone is more of a spa, offering couples massages, more treatment options for hair and skin, body scrubs, body wraps and spray tanning. It will also offer a space for bridal parties or groups.

“This is more of a clinical, medical spa, and (the first location) is more of a color-hair salon and spa,” she said.

As Igo closes out her year of perseverance, she wants to concentrate on reconnecting with her staff and mentoring.

“I love what I do,” Igo said. “I … love the people that work with me. It’s hard for me to say ‘for me.’ It’s always been hard to say that word, because I feel like I work with them. This was a labor of love, because during this process I was used to being in that spa every day with them. I miss them because I was over here working and trying to get things done. This took so much of my time away from them, and I love mentoring and encouraging, just my staff. I love my staff. It’s a time for us to just reconnect and just really work on education.”

She also plans to spend more time with her family — her father, who is in his 80s; her daughter and son; and her six grandchildren. Igo’s mother passed away in July.

“She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and she loved coming here,” Igo said. “She had a love for fashion, a love for makeup, a love for skin care. I feel like everything about this place I see her, because she’s in me. I feel like she would love walking in here and being with us. Even when she was in her latest stages, she would come to the other location and the staff just treated her with so much love and respect even though she didn’t know who anyone was. We still gave her a little pedicure, and she loved it.”

She said she’s excited to cater to all of Salisbury.

“A school teacher can come here, a housewife, a stay-at-home mom,” she said. “We have moms that say, ‘Oh, I can only come two or three times a year.’ We treat them just as good as we treat the people that come in every two weeks, because they’re just as important as the people who come in every two to three weeks.

“I understand it. I was a single mom. I know what it’s like to come from nothing and be able to enjoy something like this and just soak it all in a couple times a year.”

All in all, she wants Greystone to continue to have a positive impact on the community.

“It’s not about making tons of money,” Igo said. “It’s about loving the people that work for me, loving my clients, giving back to my community. And I want people to have a safe place to come work and feel encouraged.”