The St. Johns seas have finally stilled for “Below Deck” star Sandy Yawn and her wife, Leah Rae Yawn.
Having completed their Twenty Mile home in June after an ugly entanglement with a shady builder, the couple — who married last May — have at last been able to begin their life on the First Coast.
For Leah Rae, that meant reviving the thriving business she left behind in Colorado after she and Sandy moved south — a high-end skin spa.
She unfurled a long list of celebrity clients over her three decades in the art of facial refreshment — including the iconic late actress Farrah Fawcett.
“I’ve done this forever,” Leah Rae told The Citizen as she hovered over the face of Jacksonville Jaguars cheerleader CiCi Mills during a treatment. “My real expertise is in my knowledge of my ingredients. That allows me to really customize for all of my clients.”
After an lengthy search, she found a prime location for Skin by Leah inside the bustling Prim salon in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The new Floridian became the de facto contractor on her bedeviled home construction after their builder went dark — and she applied some of those hardhat skills in creating the perfect space.
Leah Rae refashioned an empty portion of Prim, outfitting it with custom lighting, sleek furniture and cutting edge equipment. Her services include brow shaping, dermaplaning, peels, lasers and facials.
Some of the machinery she plans to deploy, Leah Rae said, isn’t available anywhere else in Jacksonville.
“I can’t tell you exactly what it is right now,” she said. “But I’m super excited about it. I don’t just do a HydraFacial. I don’t just do a laser. There’s a reason why I pick what I pick. And a lot of girls in the industry don’t know how to do that.”
The makeup maven said she is also in charge of handling her famed wife’s aesthetics for the hit Bravo show.
As she carefully misted Mills’ face, Leah Rae discussed her other arena of expertise — singing.
As her social media followers are well aware, Leah Rae is an accomplished gospel vocalist– and routinely belts out moving melodies on her accounts.
While she no longer releases gospel music, her vocals continue to ring out at high profile events, and she’s scheduled to sing the National Anthem for her new hometown Jacksonville Jaguars in October.
“I have six albums, and I toured and I traveled, but I lost that career when I came out with Sandy,” she told The Citizen. “So that was devastating, but I get it. And so the beauty industry saved my life, you know, to have that to fall back onto.”
Leah Rae said she and Sandy first encountered Ponte Vedra and its environs through family living in Jacksonville.
The yacht captain quickly grew enamored with Nocatee and its amenities, delighting in Splash, Spray and the golf cart trails.
“Sandy wanted all the water parks,” Leah Rae said with a laugh, noting that locals accustomed to seeing her spouse guiding yachts will soon see her steering a golf cart.
With her home now standing and her business burgeoning, Leah said the Sunshine State move has been well worth the challenges.
The couple tied the knot May 11, and their wedding will air on Bravo this September.
“St. Johns County is amazing,” she said. “I was a little stressed out because I got rid of my business in Colorado, I’m the new girl in town here, and literally rebuilding my entire business from scratch. Sure, we have out expertise and our backgrounds, but to start something brand new, it’s really hard, and it’s all about networking, supporting one another, and integrity. So far, so good.”
