2009 Niagara Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner: Michele Auger, Emerging Entrepreneur

Finesse Interior Design & Home Decor Michele Auger, Owner 89&1/2 Geneva St., St. Catharines Ph: 905-682-5105 www.finesseniagara.com info@finesseniagara.com

Michele Auger, owner and designer of Finesse Interior Design & Home Décor, chose the name of her business perfectly – she brings subtlety, discrimination, taste and artful management to every project.

Michele was born with a great eye and sense of style, which she honed obtaining a Certificate in Interior Decoration at Mohawk College. After graduation, she accumulated 18 years of experience working in a drapery and home furnishings store in Niagara Falls, but she felt no connection to their overall style. While decorating a large plantation-style home in Crystal Beach, she took a leap of faith and sent in photos of her work to several Canadian decorating magazines. Within two weeks she got calls from both Style at Home and Canadian House and Home magazines, the two premier Canadian interior décor publications, and at the completion of the Crystal Beach project she decided to give her notice to the store. Style at Home came down to photograph the house and featured it in their Summer 2006 issue. The rest, as they say, is history.

Her venture lent itself to starting out as a home-based consulting firm, but she planned to eventually move to an external location with a retail aspect. Within a year, that dream also became a reality!

Armed with a long list of criteria for her storefront, Michele began searching in downtown St. Catharines, which she loves for its character and intimate size. She saw an opportunity to revitalize one of the many great buildings, and there was a quirky edifice at 89½ Geneva Street that caught her eye – a bit odd looking from the front, but the description of the interior sounded interesting. The building had been built for the Salvation Army in 1915 and was a functioning church when Michele looked at it, but the pastor and the community were splitting up and it was up for sale. The interior suited her vision perfectly: lots of character in its vaulted ceiling, antique lighting fixtures and light-filled space, with plenty of room for the retail shop.

The store is a calm, airy and inviting place, showcasing great decorating items along the perimeter around a large raised central platform that displays attractive and inspiring vignettes which look easily transplantable to someone’s home.

Shopping at Finesse is designed to make clients feel good on a number of levels. Not only is the store welcoming and fun to browse, but all of the soft furniture is Canadian-made, the Farrow & Ball line of paints that Michele carries has one of the lowest VOC ratings in the industry, and the accessories, which come from all over the world, are sourced from environmentally-friendly manufacturers. Michele has also thought about setting up a lunch counter in her store to provide refreshment while customers work on details of their home projects.

Michele is a champion of the unique downtown core of St. Catharines, and feels that her purchase and renovation of one of the old buildings on Geneva Street is having an impact on what has for many years been one of the more neglected parts of the city. She says that customers are always surprised when they come in the store. In fact, the vibe of the store and client referrals are largely responsible for her success. People seem to instantly connect with Michele’s style and the credibility of her work – years later many are still coming in with a copy of her first spread in Style at Home magazine.

Michele took her dream and turned it into a warm, welcoming reality. Her combined concept of offering decorating services with a visual retail base, coupled with her practical approach to creating homes that truly suit her clients’ lives and budgets, have made her business the destination of choice for savvy home shoppers in Niagara. Finesse Interior Design and Décor lives and breathes Michele’s commitment to preservation in her choice of reviving a uniquely historical property, her choice of environmentally-sound decorating materials, and her support of Canadian manufacturers.

Client Site Visits 2009

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