Sarah A. Miller/Tyler Morning Telegraph Cherie Paro, owner of The Granite Girls, talks about the different styles of granite and stone at her office Wednesday in Tyler.

 

Inside her “gypsy palace,” Cherie Paro has granite and other rock samples littering the floor.

She calls the bright yellow building that houses her business, The Granite Girls, her “gypsy palace” because it’s not all perfect, she said.

While working in the furniture business nearly 20 years ago, Ms. Paro was introduced to granite. While it was largely unknown by builders two decades ago, granite is now commonly used on countertops in homes.

Ms. Paro grew up in Tyler and started Design Furnishings 17 years ago, designing iron tables with granite tops and other iron décor. A woman asked her why she didn’t do granite countertops, so she taught herself how.

“And a lot of miracles later … never would I have thought this is where I’d be today,” she said Wednesday while sitting in her office.

She began in a tiny room inside Janie’s Cakes, when it was on Fifth Street, doing about one countertop project a month. When both businesses had grown enough for the need to expand, Ms. Paro moved to what became The Granite Girls on South Broadway Avenue.

“I was the first granite countertop company in town,” Ms. Paro said, adding that her business grew greatly after she joined the Tyler Area Builders Association. “Other granite companies started popping up around me. … I always felt competition was healthy for a business.”

She did granite countertops for home remodels and new construction. She said she would drive around town to see who was building. When she told the builders they needed to put granite countertops in their houses, they’d reply, “What’s that and who makes it?”

After Ms. Paro did her first two houses for builder Joe Carlyle, which were featured in the annual Parade of Homes tour, “it totally put me on the map,” she said. She started doing a couple of remodels a month, with 80 percent of her business being new home construction.

 

BUILDER

Now, Ms. Paro is not only supplying the granite countertops for new home construction. She’s added home builder to her resume.

“I learned from the best,” she said. “I watched how it was done for years, bided my time.”

About four or five years ago, remodels started climbing while home building plummeted with the economy. She found people were staying in their homes and remodeling what they had.

After she pulled permits for a $300,000 makeover, where she completely gutted and remodeled a house, she decided she wanted to be a builder. And after home construction began rising again, she felt it was time to go into that business.

She started her first home in July and completed it on budget in January.

“We’re growing,” she said of adding home building services. “I’ve always felt like flexibility is the key to success.”

She said she will still focus heavily on granite countertops and remodeling, but would like to build several custom homes a year. Foreman Tommy McAllister helps Ms. Paro build homes.

“I want to be hands on and the only way to do that is to not get too much on my plate,” she said. “I go to every single job and shop with every client. … There’s only one of me.”

Ms. Paro has done granite countertop work in about a 100-mile radius but prefers to keep remodeling and home building jobs closer to home.

 

ROCK COLLECTOR

Her father, Henry Paro, was an avid rock collector, and she recalls rock hunting on vacations as a child. She said she and her sisters and mother all have rock gardens at their houses, and she still searches for cool rocks while on vacation.

Going into the granite business could “maybe be the rocks in my head,” she said. “But a lot was designing furniture and iron work.”

She still loves iron work, having several iron sculptures and other decorations throughout her office.

“I love making things pretty,” she said, adding that in her business, she uses the fashion degree she earned from Tyler Junior College.

Ms. Paro’s favorite part of the job is seeing a complete project come together and look like what she had planned in her mind.

“That’s my gift,” she said. “There’s lots of color in my brain.”

She likes to spend other people’s money, her sister and office manager, Lynette Paro, chimed in.

“My job is to go shopping with you and spend your money and I do enjoy that part,” Ms. Paro said.

Granite is extremely durable and has thousands of colors and a variety of finishes, including shiny, honed and leather. When she started her business, Ms. Paro had one sample board with 10 to 15 colors on it for customers to choose from. Now, she sees something different nearly every week coming in to Dallas from around the world. Granite ranges from $55 to $400 per square foot. The more rare the rock, the more expensive, she added.

Her goal is to install every one of the colors of granite she offers in Tyler homes.

She also carries marble, man-made quartz and quartzite, a natural rock that looks like marble but is as strong as granite. She said more customers want something different than what they’ve seen and are willing to pay more for rocks with a lot of personality.

Ms. Paro has served on several nonprofit boards and received numerous awards, including TABA’s Associate of the Year in 2003. She also was honored with Women in Tyler, as one of several “Women who Have Triumphed” in 2007.

She likes to think of herself as the “queen of reinvention,” proudly touting her 17 years of sobriety after 17 years of “craziness,” she said.

Her younger sister, Lynette Paro, is her only employee. Another younger sister, Renee Paro Ray, formerly worked for her and now they work together. Ms. Paro said she uses her for all of her flooring and backsplash needs. Even her mother, Joyce Paro, worked for her for free when she started the business and couldn’t afford to pay her. Her older sister, Denise Paro Murphy, owns the building in which her business has been located for about 10 years.

She said she has a lot of referrals and repeat customers.

“You’re as good as your last job, so you better do them right,” she said.