Orem salon embracing change while recovering from devastating 2022 fire
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- A nail technician performs a manicure on a customer at Seasons Salon and Day Spa on Nov. 30, 2024.
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- A fire damaged six businesses in Orem in the early hours of Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022.
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- The outside of Seasons Salon and Day Spa in Lindon, as seen Nov. 30, 2024.
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- Seasons salon owner Autumn Spencer, right, works at a computer as receptionist Kennedy Peay, in red, assists a customer with an appointment Nov. 30, 2024.
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- This photo taken Nov. 30, 2024, shows a painting of the former Seasons location in Orem.
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- The salt cave inside of Seasons Salon and Day Spa in Lindon is shown Nov. 30, 2024.
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- Hairstylist Ebanie Mattinson washes a customer’s hair inside Seasons Salon and Day Spa on Nov. 30, 2024.
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- Seasons owner Autumn Spencer, standing, converses with employees at a front desk Nov. 30, 2024.
On Small Business Saturday at the end of November, Autumn Spencer along with her team of hairstylists and nail technicians were busy serving clients inside Seasons Salon and Day Spa in Lindon.
The atmosphere was filled with music, conversations and customers being pampered.
Though all appears well, the business hasn’t quite been the same since tragedy struck two years earlier.
On Nov. 19, 2022, an early Saturday morning fire torched Seasons Salon’s original location at 934 N. State St. in Orem. The fire also left several other businesses significantly impacted or destroyed.
It’s a grim memory that Spencer, the owner of Seasons, will never forget.
“I felt like my soul burnt and left with that fire,” she said.
Luckily, no one was inside of the building at the time of the fire, but merchandise was destroyed and the roof completely collapsed.
The business, which had been in the same Orem location for 17 years at the time, essentially was deemed a total loss.
Spencer, who opened the salon in 2005 when she was just 21, was left devastated.
Amid the emotional toll of losing the salon, including the building, money, products and clients, she also lost herself.
To many, it may have just been a salon, or a business. But for Spencer, it was a big part of her life.
“Everything was just, like, picked up, flipped upside down and (now) you have to adjust,” she said.
Despite the setback, she was determined to rise from the ashes.
Spencer, her husband and Seasons staff immediately sought out spaces to rebuild. In the meantime, Seasons temporarily operated out of Relik Salon & Spa in Orem.
Spencer says they considered rebuilding in the original location but faced numerous challenges to move forward with those efforts.
Eventually, they found a new space at 139 S. State St, Suite 1 in Lindon, about five minutes north of their former Orem salon.
Initially, she was hesitant due to the building’s location, nearby competition and fear that many of her longtime clients may have difficulty finding them.
Ultimately, Seasons opened its doors at the new Lindon location in March 2023, less than six months after the fire.
The space is smaller than the original location, according to Spencer, but it accommodates the variety of services that Seasons offers.
“It is a different layout, but it still offers everything that we did before, without the tanning. But instead, we replaced it with a salt cave,” Spencer said.
She calls the salt cave addition a holistic approach in catering to clients’ desire for pampering and relaxation.
Though opening a new building would seemingly mark the start of a new season for Spencer and her salon, the transition hasn’t been easy.
Nearly a dozen of her employees opted to part ways with the business after the Orem location’s demise, which led to another issue: a loss in clientele.
“And as everyone kind of left, the clientele either went with them or didn’t know who to go to and went and found a new place, or they heard fire and just assumed it was out of business,” Spencer explained.
Now, two years after the fire that almost completely destroyed her business, Spencer says she’s been able to hire and train new employees. Business is slowly climbing in Lindon, but not quite at the levels they saw in Orem.
I kind of thought it would take about two years to get back. It’s gonna take a little longer than that,” she told the Daily Herald. “I think the economy also doesn’t have a great play in there, so there is still a loss in clientele and revenue and all of the things, but there are so many things to be grateful for and thankful for.”
Spencer says the experience has been similar to starting from the ground up again, only this time with experience.
“I’m able to do things a little quicker than I did before, or maybe a little quicker than someone that’s, you know, just starting. So I see potential, and I just have to hold onto that,” she said.
Ebanie Mattinson, one of the remaining hairstylists at Seasons from the original location, echoes Spencer’s sentiments about the transition of locations.
“Just trying to keep in touch with clients and stuff during that time, trying to let everyone know that everything’s going to be OK,” Mattinson explained.
Despite the difficulties, Mattinson is grateful for the support the salon received and that she sustained most of her clients who followed her to the Lindon space.
“It’s been good here. I really like it. It’s beautiful,” Mattinson added.
She also finds inspiration in Spencer’s determination to persevere.
“It’s been really good just to stick with Autumn and see how far she’s come,” Mattinson said.
For Spencer, it was the support of her family, community members, fellow business owners and staff that motivated her to push through the pain of losing the old building and restarting anew.
“I really didn’t get to take time to actually mourn. I knew I was sad, and I knew it was devastating, but I was, like, ‘I gotta brush this off and gotta keep going or else I’m gonna lose it,'” Spencer said.
Most importantly, she wanted her children to understand what it means to be resilient.
“I wanted to teach my daughters, and I wanted to teach my team and anyone that I knew that life gets hard, but you have to keep going,” Spencer said.
As she and her staff continue to rebuild clientele and revenue, new customers are finding Seasons at its Lindon home. Spencer hopes people who come into the salon for one of their many services embrace the comfort, space and energy the facility provides, though she knows some of her longtime clients have a hard time adjusting to change.
“I think there was a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and 17 years of emotion built in those walls (in Orem). So now that we’re a year and a half here, I think that emotion and that comfy … feeling and energy is finally here,” Spencer said.
Something that clients who frequented the Orem location may notice at the Lindon salon is the different color palette throughout the salon, which represents a different season — something that Spencer says symbolizes the different trials people experience in their lives.
“I think not everyone gets a second chance, so I wanted to make the second chance worth it,” she said.
