RIDGEWAY – Lavern Prioleau Glover has a theory about God-given gifts: When you follow your calling to put them to use, doors open in ways that will amaze you.
When, after many years of treating her passion – interior design – as a side gig, she decided to make the leap and turn it into her full-time job in her hometown of Ridgeway, she says so many things just fell into place.
“I’m about 30 minutes from downtown Columbia, I’m about 30 minutes from Rock Hill, and I’m right in the back door of Blythewood,” says Glover, whose Palmer Street storefront officially opened June 24. “And that’s just where I want to be.”
Her business is called Glover & Glover Interiors and Home Furnishings. She sells furniture and décor accessories and operates a full-service interior design business.
That means she works with contractors to do the kind of transformative projects that people see on home renovation TV shows – and she also does much smaller-scale projects, creating a fresh look for homes where the owner isn’t looking to knock down walls.
Interior design, she says, is something she’s done for the last 30 years. Alongside a career with the state highway department. Alongside raising her children. With a longtime friend and on her own. At times she worked out of her home, for years in a rented warehouse space, and for a brief time years ago at a storefront in Blythewood, which proved too much to balance with a full-time job.
Over the decades, she says, she’s built up a loyal customer base, often decorating several successive homes for a client – or re-doing the same home with new décor every few years.
After graduating from the University of South Carolina with a degree in business, Glover went to work for the highway department in roles that made use of her college education.
It wasn’t until she was married with a small child, and had just paid an interior designer a large sum for a window treatment, that the wheels started turning in her mind. She had an idea, so she called a longtime friend, Shirley Durham, for help.
“I took apart the window treatment that I had just paid $600 for and made a pattern from it, then we put it back the same way it was.”
The next time she received an order for a window treatment, they did the same thing.
“And from there, L&S Design – Lavern and Shirley – was born.
After Glover retired from her state job in 2018, she soon began looking for space in Ridgeway, her hometown, to pursue her design dream.
Then came her break. Her dad, longtime Ridgeway town councilman Donald Prioleau, called Glover to say Tina Johnson was closing her Ridgeway boutique, Over the Top, and was about to put the building up for sale. It was a perfect fit.
Meanwhile, Durham moved back to South Carolina, and is now managing the sewing side of the business. Glover’s husband, Kevin runs the financial and operations side of the business. Her dad is the facilities manager, and her mom, she jokes, “is everyone’s boss.”
Her family and community, she says, continue to be a foundation of her success.
Glover’s shop sells furniture and décor accessories, and some level of service comes with all of them. She says it’s amazing sometimes what difference the slightest touch – such as new pillows – can make to a room.
“I meet people where they are,” she says – whether they’re looking for a complete overhaul or are simply looking to make their home more comfortable on a budget
“No matter who you are and no matter what your economic status was in Ridgeway, there was one thing that we all had in common – we were all a small, close-knit community of family, and that’s why I’m proud to be in downtown Ridgeway,” she says.
She currently has a website under development, and she says her long-term goal is to reach people all over the United States. Her shop in Ridgeway is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays by appointment or, she says, “if I’m in the store, just come on in.”
She can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (803) 240-4629.
Glover said she’s looking forward to a bright future as she pursues her passion full-time.
“My grandfather’s service station was on the back street, and he would be so proud that his granddaughter now has a business on Palmer Street. That just shows where we are today as a community.”
“I’m a little giddy,” she says. “I’m overjoyed now because this is what I’ve always wanted to do.”
