A Cut Above: Husband-and-wife dup carve out a niche with Wolf & Ryan, their art-inspired style salon

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A passion for style is certainly a driving force behind the new local business Wolf & Ryan Salon. And for owners Stacia and Josh Gambrell that passion extends beyond a love for cutting-edge hairstyles. Art, architecture and an overall unique customer experience are all at the heart of the salon, which the husband-and-wife duo opened in a historic former home on the corner of Jefferson and Second streets in October.

Both hailing from small Appalachian towns – he’s from Manchester; she grew up in Martin – Josh and Stacia met in Lexington in 2005. Stacia had studied fine art at the University of Kentucky, eventually transitioning into hair styling, and Josh moved to Lexington to begin his cosmology education. After meeting and becoming friends, they soon began dating, and Josh recalls that he felt the two also had a future professionally and creatively.

“Lexington has a way of bringing people together,” he said. “It’s a great town to network in, do business and grow professionally.”

Lexington may have been a comparatively “big city” at the time for the small-town couple, who married in 2010, but they both heard an even bigger city calling to them. That same year, the Gambrells packed their bags and moved to New York City. They worked together in a small and relaxed downtown salon that also hosted local art, and also kept busy with fast-paced, high-profile gigs, including working as stylists for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week and on the sets of Vogue magazine and Italian Vanity Fair. According to Stacia, the work they landed on the New York fashion scene was “surreal – a real insight into that world.”

During their four years in New York, Stacia and Josh enjoyed new creative freedom and a big dose of inspiration but ultimately decided to move back to Kentucky to start a family and revisit their dream of owning a salon.

“Our goal was to have a place people wanted to come to and where we could provide hospitality and just take care of people,” Stacia said.

That place materialized at 508 West Second St., a late Richardsonian-style home with Colonial Revival details. The turn-of-the-20th-century home with interesting Lexington roots was built in the years leading up to 1900 for J. Frank Roche, whose family owned and operated the corner store and coal yard behind the house. The home, which recently served as offices and apartments, has maintained the charm of America’s golden age while simultaneously serving the needs of the modern salon.

“When we decided on this location for our salon, we couldn’t help but feel that the building’s story was our story: keeping things traditional and old school but moving forward and staying current,” said Josh. “There is a bit of architecture to cutting hair. The building itself exudes an architectural style and is an inspiration in itself.”

After securing their location, Stacia and Josh began the grunt work of painting and cleaning, while deliberately keeping as many of the historic details as possible intact. Striking features of the salon include original hardwood floors, a grand picture window facing Second Street, three elegant fireplaces and carved embellishments in the moldings and around the door – charms that recall a time when elaborate detail and décor were commonplace.

While furnishing the space, the couple wanted to find a piece or two to reflect the original time period of the home. They chose a velvet settee and chair for one of the rooms and were surprised to see that the pieces were dated to 1870 – the year that construction began on the home.

“We felt it was a sign that we had made the right choice in location.”

Modern design meets traditional in the salon’s custom workstations – sleek, wooden cabinetry with clean lines and granite countertops that float in the middle of the front room. The house’s large walls and high ceilings are ideal for portraying large-scale artwork, and with both agreeing that art is an integral part of their identities as stylists – Stacia has a background in art history – creating a rotating exhibition space for local artists was a natural step. Currently, a large-scale piece by local artist Drew Lance, owner of Rain Damage Skate Shop, is on display, as well as an intriguing blue stencil piece on white wooden canvas, titled “Sailors Beware” by a local artist who goes my the name Hello Mona. Work by Ana Maldonado-Coomer will be on display soon.

“We don’t want a normal salon feel – just a place that people want to come and feel relaxed,” said Stacia, whose quiet, dry-humored wit is the yin to Josh’s high-energy and gregarious personality. Together, their personalities and the unique physical features of the space all combine to lend a nouveau-punk-meets-intellectual sensibility to the salon.

Along with the learning curve and challenges involved with running a new business, the joys of making their own stamp on Lexington’s hair industry are guiding the way for the couple, said Josh. They are enjoying being back in their home state and raising their 3-year-old son, Wyatt, and continue to look to the future, with plans to launch a Wolf & Ryan product line in the next year or so.

“We are working on formulations, meeting with chemists, looking at branding and packaging, etc.,” Josh said. “We have a vision for growth in the future that includes bringing more people into this idea of what we think a hair salon can be.”

“Honestly, where we are now feels like the beginning – the start of chapter one,” he continued. “Even though we have had many years of experience, it’s just the prologue to the start of something really special.” ss

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