A Mother and Four Daughters
Creativity and Can-Do Spirit Give this Rowan Business a Window on the World.

     SPENCER --- Phyllis Cain, a Rowan County mother of four and grandmother of 12, has a lot in common with sports superstar Jerry Stackhouse. Also NASCAR icon Junior Johnson. And Charles Johnson of the Buffalo Bills.
    It’s all about business – the fabric business – not basketballs, footballs or race cars. And Phyllis knows her business.
    She is the original creative genius behind Spencer’s Interiors by Cain, although she gives a lot of credit to her daughters, all of whom have joined the business, and her long-time employees, whom she describes as “like family.”
    This group has designed for all five homes of basketball great Stackhouse, following him from Chapel Hill, to Detroit, to Washington, DC, to Texas, as his career took off. NASCAR’s Junior Johnson imported fabric from Egypt for his window treatments, and Phyllis remembers that it was stitched with “little tiny mirrors all through it.”
    From velvets to silks to leather, Phyllis recalls her most expensive assignment involved Ralph Lauren embroidered silk with a price tag of $585/yard. “Basically, we have a prayer meeting before we cut,” says Phyllis.
    Phyllis has one word for the success of her business: she’s amazed. “Sometimes when we finish a house, I’ll step back and look and ask myself: ‘How in the world did we do this?’ ”
The business is built on the needle and design work that she has loved since her childhood days in Kentucky, and she always wanted her daughters to join the business. That dream has come true, with Jennifer (Jenny) Ghent, Andrea Helms, Anita Usher and Lisa Campbell all in the shop. A son-in-law, Curtis Ghent, is also in the business. To the youngest daughter, Andrea, now 29, the business often felt as if she were competing with a sibling when she was growing up. “There were many nights that she slept on the worktable while I worked,” Phyllis says of Andrea.
    This family business does it all, living by a slogan that Phyllis repeats often: “Don’t ever say, ‘I can’t.’ You just do it.”
    They tackle every job, from erecting and climbing the scaffolding and installing the hardware for window treatments to stitching bedspreads, canopies, headboards, pillows, vanity table covers, place mats and napkins. Phyllis started the business 30 years ago in her basement in Lexington. She was a young, single mother. When she outgrew the basement five years later, she discovered the property on U.S. 29 in Spencer. She sold an insurance policy to buy it. As she says, she had “no money and no backing.” Ruffled curtains were all the rage when she started – quite a difference from the sophisticated smocked ties, the grommet tops, the swags, the arches, the empires, the beaded trim, the knots, the welting and the inserts of today.
    She has made a lot of right moves. Spencer is a good location. Norman’s in Salisbury, a drapery manufacturer, offered a labor pool when it closed, as did Becky Hinkle Fabrics, also in Spencer, which went out of business after a fire.
    Phyllis, who learned to sew from her mother and grandmother in Kentucky, taught her daughters when they were 11 or 12 years old.
    Jenny remembers the desire to follow in her mom’s footsteps from the time she was 7. She begged her mother to let her sew, she says, and her mom said no. She tackled the machine herself when her mother was shopping, made a pillow and stuffed it with popcorn. Today, Jenny’s creativity has led to unusual projects. There’s the oval-shaped bedspread made of a father’s ties stretched out in the center of the piece. The client couldn’t bear to part with the ties and cried when she saw the creation. Another bedspread is made of a t-shirt collection. They also sewed the award-winning ribbons of an equestrian rider from Pinehurst into a border for his drapes.
    “You want to create a feeling, not a look,” says Jenny.
    “We do whatever people will allow us to do,” adds her mother. “I tell people to choose the fabric and let me let the fabric tell me what it wants me to do. I love that. Sometimes, you can use remnants and save a lot of money for them.”
    Other times, individuals or interior designers who come from the High Point, Greensboro or Charlotte areas have very definite ideas of what they want. “We’ll go with the designers into a home to measure and figure,” Phyllis says. “Sometimes, they don’t have the insight to do the engineering as to what is feasible. That’s where we come in.”
    Creativity really flows when things get slow, Phyllis says. “Then, we start fiddling and playing with things,” she says. With all projects, they emphasize “doing things that require a lot of thought and a lot of technique.”
    Interiors by Cain developed a national reputation, with orders from California, New York, Florida, Texas and other states, after a cover story in the trade publication, Draperies and Window Coverings, in 2004. When the editor called from New York, Phyllis told him: “You probably have the wrong number.” He assured her that he wanted his photographer to come to Salisbury, to her shop, and that the only way any company received editorial coverage in the book was to be recommended.
    From other high-profile projects, such as the fall and spring Furniture Markets in High Point and the 20-foot windows in the N.C. Supreme Court building in Raleigh, Interiors by Cain has gained an even wider client base.
    Phyllis was also profiled in another national trade publication, Windows Fashions magazine, and was named Business Person of the Year by the National Republican Congressional Committee, both in 2003.
    Consistency and quality of product have also helped, Phyllis says. “We care and we’re always here,” she says. “I work double shifts. I’ve always been the type who couldn’t wait to get to work.”

Business Advice from Phyllis Cain
--- Choose employees carefully. “Think about stability and your reputation,” Phyllis says.
--- Do what you have to do. “This is how I’ve raised my children with this business,” she says.
--- Network. Phyllis gained contacts from the High Point Furniture Market and other designers by teaching sewing concepts and design classes at Davidson County Community College.
--- Consistency. “We’re always there,” she says. “We want our customers to be happy. Our names are on it.”
--- Give back to your community. Interiors by Cain works with the Battered Women’s Shelter, Bethany Colony of Mercy and local churches, helping with design work and fund-raising. The company is a staple at the designer show homes for the Salisbury Symphony fund-raiser. Phyllis also brings in students from North Rowan High School to learn her craft, and she has had an exchange student from Japan, as well as interns from Western Carolina.
(Rowan Magazine, Jan.'09)