IN THE SPOTLIGHT: From Kentucky, Paris to Griffith Salon, Candace Beye

Getting a ride to school on your father’s fishing boat sounds like part of a story from Boca Grande’s History Center. Indeed, those stories are favorites around the island. One of the fun and charming things about Boca Grande is that this story is still the way things are happening today. 

Candace Beye, stylist at the James Griffith Salon, located in The Gasparilla Inn & Club spa building, smiles from ear to ear as she relates how her husband, Jesse Beye, captain of Salty Jaw Charters, sometimes gets their girls to school. He will take them for a sunrise ride in the fishing boat, and, if the timing is right, end up participating in the Donuts With Dad with nine-year-old Brooklyn and seven-year-old Avery.  

For Candace, such times are special for the whole family. 

“Growing up in Kentucky, I would fish with my grandparents,” she recalled. “They had a nice little pond in their backyard, and we would use bamboo sticks and fishing line and bread. People would dump goldfish in there and the fish would get so big! That’s what I would always fish as a kid, and now I’ve always loved fishing, so it’s nice that the girls really like it, too. It’s our family activity.”

Candace originally moved to Southwest Florida with her parents in 2005. She was still in high school at the time. That time in Florida only lasted about three years, and then the family moved back to Kentucky.

“The timing just wasn’t right,” Candace explained.  Her parents were looking for a change, but they were not retired yet. Candace’s older sister was still living in Kentucky, and the distance and separation were too much. Candace knew she would be back, though, since she had already fallen in love with her favorite captain, Jesse Beye. Two years later, the two were married and Candace returned to Englewood.

Her parents are now about to build a home in South Gulf Cove. They have retired, and are planning to become seasonal residents very soon. 

During that first period in Florida, Candace finished school and went on to “hair school,” and began the career she had always planned to go into. It seemed that she was born knowing how to style hair. 

“I’ve been in Florida since 2005, and I’ve been with James Griffith Salon since 2010, so I’m going on my 15th season with him,” she said. She had worked at another salon on the island for a couple of years immediately after hair school. That salon is no longer on the island.  

She said the salon has been a great place to work, and offers a couple of really good extras. One is the chance to travel as part of continuing education in her field.

“I am a French-trained hairdresser, and I specialize in cuts. That means when I look at a picture, I can kind of read it, as to how to cut the hair. When you continue your education in the style we do, we learn more about how to angle all of your haircuts, based off of your actual head shape. So, everything is wash and wear. It doesn’t have the blunt lines, so it’s an easy grow-out, and it doesn’t make for harsh lines. It softens the look.” 

Candace is proud of the place James has in the industry and appreciates his encouragement of further education for all the staff. This continuing education also provides opportunities for travel, often with several of the stylists going together to fun places, like Paris, Atlanta, New York, and Amsterdam.

“We went to Amsterdam for a class once,” she said, “so, a lot of my escape, for my mental sanity, is to go to classes. It’s a way for me to go and see different places, but then also make it for business. That’s something I really enjoy doing. I definitely like going and visiting different places, especially if it helps me learn new things.” 

One of her favorite instructors is Jerome Lordet, a well-known stylist and teacher from Paris. He and James have been friends for years, and he comes to Boca Grande  or Venice frequently to give classes. Lordet has opened a salon in New York, so that is likely to be the venue for a class in the near future for Candace and some of the other stylists from the studio.

“He has become a friend to all of us,” she said, referring to Lordet.

“The studio is a great place to work,” she said. 

“A lot of the people I work with were friends of mine before I started working at the salon. We’re really blessed because we have a great environment in the Boca salon. Maybe half of the staff I’ve been friends with since I first moved here and was in hair school. We like to do the classes together, and make a trip of it.”

Another unexpected advantage of working at the Boca studio is that Candace and her husband occasionally share clients. A number of times they have discovered the woman whose hair Candace  styled is married to a man who hired Jesse for a fishing party. This has led to friendships that might not have occurred otherwise. It is always a happy surprise when they discover their clients are related. 

“It’s been fun, being in the same area for as long as we both have, and being able to build relationships and even to go visit people in other places because of that connection,” she said. There was one woman, in particular, who was a client and was out on the Salty Jaws Charter boat twice a week with her husband. Neither Jesse nor Candace knew she was a client of the other until they saw the woman in a TV commerical and discovered the connection. 

Candace loves the social aspect of her job, as well as the technical side. She had once thought she might go into the field of psychology, but believes her position as a stylist incorporates some of what she might have done as a psychologist. 

For fun, Candace has been learning to paddleboard, but her number-one enjoyment is fishing on the boat, especially if the girls are along. “It’s become a family affair. The girls love it, we are always crab dipping when tarpon are around,” she said. “I did just start trying paddleboaring, and that has been really fun. So, I think I’m going to start getting into that a little bit more.” 

Both the family togetherness and the individual fun are important to her, since the girls have started getting very involved in community activities, like soccer and cheerleading. She believes each member of the family needs to be able to focus on their own special times, as well as having valuable fun times as a unit. The boat is a major player in that family togetherness.

The girls attend The Island School, and have been going to school on the island since pre-school days. The whole family loves the schools in Boca Grande, and believes the girls are getting lessons in community values every day. 

“I think it is charming, and I think it gives them the best sense of community they could have,” Candace said. “It’s super rare to find that. It melts my heart because it actually reminds me of the school I went to, because there were only 60 kids in my school. And it was just this little private Catholic school in Kentucky, and every other grade was together because there were not enough kids to fill a whole class. So, The Island School gives me all the same feels. I just think that it’s special.”

She continued, “They have so many fun things for the kids. They do all the golf cart things, the fun festivals. It’s simple, and it’s perfect in every way. It’s the sense of community for me. I think the kids will always have that in their hearts. They have one-on-one attention and love, which you don’t usually find in bigger schools with so many students.”

She noted that the girls’ whole school experience has been on the island. She added that the Preschool staff is also “outstanding.” 

“We loved it too,” she said. Her family has kept ties with the preschool teachers and she said the teachers sometimes “pop in to some of the school stuff, and I’ll start getting videos and text messages from them–and I love that. It’s a good spot. It is super fun, too.”

In addition to school and fishing, Candace said she loves spending alone-time with her girls.

“Sometimes I’ll do little trips with them, especially in June and when I’m not super busy at the salon, but Jesse is really busy. I’ll take the girls and we have a little ‘girls’ trip’ for a long weekend, usually somewhere in Florida. And then I’ll do one get-away with my sister and some of our friends from Kentucky.”

Candace loves to cook and make special treats for the family. She enjoys caring for her house and yard. “I’m really a home-body,” she said. Just then the last member of the family made himself known. That is Jasper, the dog. He has been part of the family for 11, years, which makes him the big brother to both Brooklyn and Avery.