Paradise Salon Spa Wellness Celebrates 12 Years of Innovation in Carson City

Local Wellness Destination Marks Anniversary with Unique Combination of Services

CARSON CITY -- When Perry and Starr Nixdorf purchased a building with seven bathrooms and four showers on June 12, 2013, they weren't entirely sure what they were getting into. Twelve years later, Paradise Salon Spa Wellness has become one of Carson City's most distinctive wellness destinations, combining hair services, medical spa treatments, body piercing, and therapeutic aquatic exercise under one roof.

"There's no place like Paradise," said Perry Nixdorf, who has been cutting hair for 50 years and operating salons since 1983. "When you walk in the door, the energy of the building is fantastic. You come into our lounge where we have an Alice in Wonderland theme. That is a total experience unto itself."

Paradise celebrates its 12th anniversary on January 21, marking more than a decade of serving Carson City's wellness needs in ways that extend far beyond a traditional salon.

From Four Chairs to Full-Service Wellness

The journey to Paradise began 13 years ago when the Nixdorfs operated Hair Studio, a four-chair salon on Winnie Lane. Perry faced a challenge familiar to many salon owners: the traditional employee-employer model wasn't working.

"I was in a business model that was unworkable," Perry explained. "The salon business model I had was employee and employer relationships. And over the decades, that business model had transformed to a landlord and renter situation. I wasn't doing well as an employer-employee and needed to change."

Inspired by the salon suites Perry's sister worked at in Tucson, Arizona, and seeking to diversify their income streams, the couple began looking for buildings. A connection through Starr's involvement with Professional Saleswomen of Nevada led them to their current location.

"We didn't like it at first because it had seven bathrooms, four showers that you had to clean," Starr recalled with a laugh. "But we were inspired by the building and wrote a tentative business plan on how that building could become a business for us. And in the process of writing that, we discovered that we wanted to actually do this."

The Pool Nobody Expected

The building came with an unusual feature: an indoor pool. For Starr, who had spent eight years as a Pilates instructor teaching at gyms across the region, the pool represented both opportunity and terror.

"I did not like water and thought that I was going to die in the pool," Starr said. "I wanted a Pilates studio."

Everything changed when Perry showed her a video of Pilates being performed in a swimming pool in Italy.

"The light bulb came on," Starr said. "Then we had to decide: are we going to make a gym in that pool that is focused on Zumba and all this really fun, high-intensity work? Or are we going to focus on rehabilitation, therapeutics, things that are more appropriate for people who have experienced some injury or some setback in their life?"

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) revealed a gap in Carson City's wellness landscape: nobody was serving the population of retired or injured residents who needed therapeutic aquatic exercise.

Starr attended the Aquatic Therapy and Rehab Institute symposium at Lake Las Vegas in August 2013, launching a journey that would transform both her career and countless clients' lives.

Transforming Lives One Session at a Time

Today, Starr is a certified aquatic therapy and rehab instructor, and Paradise's warm-water pool has become a lifeline for clients facing serious mobility challenges.

Charlie Abowd, chef at Adele's restaurant in Carson City, came to Starr after spending eight months bedridden with long-haul COVID disease. Working one-on-one three days a week, Starr helped him progress from severe debilitation to riding his bike at Burning Man.

"He came in saying he wanted to be able to ride his bike. He loved riding his bike at Burning Man," Starr said. "And in all honesty, it was life-changing that he was working out in the water. We took him from bedridden, long-haul COVID, to having fun, going out to the playa again, riding his bike, and having a good time."

Leslie Packwood ruptured her Achilles tendon stepping off a curb after a football game. Through regular aquatic classes with Starr, she regained full capacity and returned to riding her horse.

Perhaps most remarkable is Mark, a stroke survivor the VA told to "get used to" life in a wheelchair. His partner Debbie, already a client of Starr's cardio and knee classes, brought him in.

"The first thing I did is I took him into the deep end of the pool. We got him on a trampoline—we have underwater trampolines in our pool—and he started jumping with the stroke-affected leg," Starr said. "Debbie took video of him jumping on the trampoline with a stroke-affected leg, took it back to the VA, and got him back into the VA through the PT program."

Mark has made incredible progress and is now working toward walking with a walker instead of relying on his wheelchair.

"One of the things that we can do with aquatic therapy is give people hope for a better future," Perry said. "We give them hope and give them a path that they can follow to achieve their fitness goals. Get back to life. Get back on their bicycle. Get back on their horse. Get back to walking."

Building a Wellness Ecosystem

Paradise's evolution didn't stop with the pool. Two years ago, the Nixdorfs partnered with nurse practitioner Mary Sellers to add medical spa services, including testosterone and hormone replacement therapy, vitamin injections, and other treatments. They removed a sauna to create a dedicated room for the medspa, which recently celebrated its first anniversary.

"We are somewhat of a one-stop wellness place," Perry said. "We find a great amount of synergy, even though it wasn't quite evident at first, but there's a significant synergy of services that we offer in people's lives."

The business serves a diverse clientele. Younger clients gravitate toward body piercing, all age groups use the salon services, and the pool primarily serves an older, sometimes mobility-challenged population—though high school athletes recovering from sports injuries also benefit from the aquatic therapy.

A Team Built to Last

Paradise's stability is reflected in its long-tenured staff. Hairdressers Megan, Heidi, Valarie, and Perry himself have all been with the business since its opening 12 years ago. Aquatic fitness instructor Susie has been there for 10 years, and body piercer Leah for six years.

"Once an employee or associate is with us, they find the stability and the working environment pleasant and productive and allows them to focus on what they want to accomplish with their customers," Perry said.

Partners in Business and Life

Perry and Starr's success stems partly from clear role division. Perry manages the salon and body piercing operations at the front of the business, while Starr oversees all pool functions and related staff.

"We work together very well because we're very clear on what each other's roles are," Perry said. "That allows us to not only be married and work together, but to have a great relationship in our personal and our professional lives."

Starr describes their partnership as complementary strengths working in tandem.

"The two of us are those two pedals that drive our business forward because my strengths are on a different level and his strengths, Perry's strengths, are on another level," she said. "And the two of us together get those wheels turning."

Starr's particular gift in aquatic therapy is assessment and individualized programming.

"Most people are coming to me with a problem," she said. "I often say, I'm Sherlock Holmes. I help them find the solution that they're possibly not finding with other sources of help. My biggest gift is the ability to listen, look at them, and help them get that solution to their pain or their mobility restriction. Very often, it's just giving them hope that they can make a change and then they do it. They do the hard work and I'm their cheerleader."

Looking Ahead: Wellness Without Walls

The Nixdorfs aren't resting on their 12-year success. They're developing AbilityFix, a fitness app designed to bring aquatic exercise to people everywhere.

"We understand that it's also wanted and needed in the world as a whole because not everybody has access to a pool and an aquatic instructor," Perry said. "So we thought that our app would do that and bring aquatic exercise to everybody's phone."

The app will allow people to do water exercises while on vacation or in other locations, then continue their training at Paradise when they return to Carson City.

"We want to bring a wellness experience to all of our customers, both here in Carson and afar in other pools," Starr said. "That physical connection we have with our clients here is what we're bringing into the app."

A Carson City Original

Paradise maintains a five-star reputation on Google, a testament to the quality of its integrated services. But beyond the reviews, the Nixdorfs take pride in creating something truly unique to Carson City.

"This entire experience they can't get anywhere else," Perry said. "Our friendly staff who smile and greet you and deliver high-quality services. We feel that we are unique and exceptional when it comes to delivering wellness services."

With characteristic confidence, Starr added: "To brag just a little, it isn't just Northern Nevada. I bet you can't find this in California either."

As Paradise enters its 13th year, the Nixdorfs remain committed to the vision that transformed a building with too many bathrooms into Carson City's most innovative wellness destination—a place where hair, health, beauty, and recovery converge under one welcoming roof.

Paradise Salon Spa Wellness is located at 3430 Executive Pointe Way in Carson City. For more information about them, visit paradisesalonspawellness.com or call 775-883-4434.