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Redefining Luxury Haircare in Austin
Here at Villa Salon Boutique, we redefine luxury hair care in Austin with personalized care. Our expert stylists, renowned for their world travel education, artistry and innovation, deliver only trend-forward styles tailored to each Guest's needs. When visiting with us at Villa, experience exceptional care, and a welcoming ambiance, where sophisticated looks are born with art and creativity.
Ati
I opened Villa Salon with my wife, Pascale, fifteen years ago. Our shared vision was clear: to create a sanctuary where every guest feels seen, cared for, and transformed through luxurious haircare. At the start of my journey, I created this motto: "I charge for therapy; the hairstyling part is free." Now, as an International Master Stylist with decades of experience, this motto rings truer than ever. For me, hairdressing is about far more than technique. It is about connection, confidence, and comfort.
My journey as a hairdresser began long before I ever held a pair of shears. I was born and raised in Beirut during the Lebanese War, where daily life was steeped in fear and uncertainty. Riding my motorcycle through war-torn streets, I became fascinated with the bold hairstyles of the 1980s. Blowouts, bob cuts, shag cuts, mullets – I saw them all as flashes of freedom and defiance against a backdrop of destruction. Even then, I understood that hair was more than mere appearance. It was artistry, identity, and self-expression.
When I fled the war and sought asylum in Canada, survival took priority. I worked odd jobs, lived in cramped quarters, and cut my roommates' hair to make ends meet. With no formal training, it seemed like nothing more than a hobby. My journey took a turn when I met Pascale. After marrying, we moved to Austin, Texas, where I drove a cab for several years. The work was steady, but every morning I woke up knowing I was meant for something different. Pascale saw it too. One evening, as I styled her hair, she turned to me and asked: “What are you doing driving a cab? You should do this instead!”
Still, fear held me back - until a fateful encounter with a passenger named Rick, a hairdresser who revealed he made my weekly income in a single day. That was the final push I needed.
The following Monday, I enrolled at Baldwin Beauty School, determined to step into my true calling. After earning my certification, I joined the prestigious Toni & Guy Academy. There, I mastered precision techniques and refined my craft, while also discovering that my greatest gift was the ability to connect. Clients didn't just leave with polished hair - they left with renewed confidence and a sense of belonging.
Eventually, I knew it was time to create something of my own. Villa Salon was born from a desire to blend world-class hair artistry with heartfelt hospitality. For the past fifteen years, we’ve specialized in custom haircuts, luxury blowouts, balayage, color correction, and personalized styling services. And yet, more than any service we offer, the connection we build with our guests is what defines us. I've greeted each day with gratitude, arriving ready to offer not just a haircut, but a moment to transform, illuminate, and educate through my craft.
Though the path was anything but easy, every challenge shaped me into the stylist and person I am today. My greatest joy is creating a space where people feel comfortable, uplifted, and confident. When you sit in my chair, it’s about igniting a presence and energy that turns heads, commands attention, and stays with you everywhere you go.
If you're ready to experience more than just a haircut, I invite you to Villa Salon. Come as you are, leave as the best version of yourself.
Pascale, founder of PK Jewels
Three minutes from our Beirut apartment, there was a jewelry store I walked past every morning on the way to school. I would look across the road and greet the owner. He knew my family. He knew my father, a man of such direct honesty that people both respected and feared him. And slowly, without knowing it, I was building something with that jeweler. Not a transaction. A relationship.
I was twelve years old.
Every allowance I received, I counted it and buried it in a candy tin, the long rectangular kind, hidden beneath my underwear in my drawer. No one knew. I did not ask anyone's opinion. I never do. I saw the outcome, envisioned it, and moved toward it.
When I finally walked through that door alone, the owner looked up, surprised. A twelve-year-old girl, unaccompanied, choosing jewelry with complete certainty. I selected pearls and 18 karat gold earrings for my mother. Because pearls were the language of the elegance I had always seen in her, and 18 karat gold was the standard she deserved. I wanted to give her something she had never owned. Something chosen entirely by my taste, for her.
My mother did not cry. She did something more powerful. She told everyone in the family. She declared, in the way only Lebanese mothers can, that her daughter understood value. That in a country at war, where money could disappear and beauty could be lost, this child had chosen something that would hold. Gold and pearls do not lose their worth. They carry it forward.
That was the first Pearls & Karats piece. I just did not have the name for it yet.
At seventeen, I fled Lebanon by boat with nothing but faith and a knowing I could not yet name. I arrived not with credentials or a gemology degree. I arrived with vision, discernment, and the conviction that beauty is sacred, not decorative.
I built a life in Austin. A degree from the University of Texas. A luxury salon, Villa Salon Boutique, built alongside my husband Ati, a master stylist whose gift I recognized before he did. And through every chapter, I kept returning to jewelry. To the pieces I found on my travels. To the stories they carried. To the women who put them on and stood differently.
Pearls & Karats was not born in a studio. It was born in the space between survival and calling, where a woman learns what truly matters and refuses to create anything less.