There is a handsome French man in the Hamptons who has an obnoxiously good-looking haircut. We have all seen him walking around Sag Harbor for decades rocking fashionable clothes, a spring in his step and a smile on his face as he marches into a mysterious brick building off of Bay Street. His name is Xavier Merat, owner and proprietor of Salon Xavier.
To say that Xavier is a Sag Harbor treasure would be an understatement. During the Covid pandemic the entrepreneur was forced to close his doors after tirelessly building his business and creating livelihoods for his employees. “It was a very scary time; I did a lot of self-reflecting to figure out what I was going to do next. The salon has been such a huge part of my life it was hard to process that I couldn’t do it anymore.”
But today the salon is back and it is thriving. On any given day in Sag Harbor, the super cool salon has both men and women getting their hair done; there is a sense of excitement inside the salon and it is obvious that it is a complete extension of Xavier himself. “The salon to me is like my baby, I am constantly doing everything I can to make it a world-class experience for my customers and clients,“ Xavier explains to me.
The salon is full service, offering everything from haircuts, nails, massages, coloring, waxing, and even spray tans, and the reviews on the internet speak for themselves. It IS a world class place.
But I think that the real story here is Xavier. He’s a guy who is becoming more and more rare in the Hamptons and in the United States. He’s a true entrepreneur making his community a better place to be and he will never give up on it, even in the face of a situation that would seem impossible to others, and he comes back even stronger. You gotta respect it.
