Legends tell of the phoenix, an immortal bird risen from ash and a symbol of resurrection. Phoenix was also the name of Louise Bane’s mixer.
The 6-quart, commercial-grade KitchenAid appliance helped Louise create signature cakes, cookies, cheesecake and banana pudding, fulfilling orders for weddings, graduations, bridal parties and baby showers. “I’ve made thousands of desserts with Phoenix,” Louise said recently. “She’s my ride or die.”
She was.
Then on an early Tuesday morning, Louise and her husband, Aaron, awoke to the smell of smoke. At first, they figured they had left a pot on the stove. Then Aaron saw the door at the bottom of the stairs framed in a fiery glow.
They heard windows popping.
Aaron kicked out the window-mounted air conditioner and rammed the glass to open the bedroom window. They tossed blankets, pillows and other cushioning out into the twilight. He jumped.
From the snow, he called up to Louise to unhook their phones from bedside chargers and jump.
Six weeks after a fire destroyed her Northwest Akron home, Louise is piecing together how she’ll earn a living and where she’ll live — a collision of personal loss and economic survival that small-business owners know all too well. Large corporations can absorb disruption with insurance, reserves and staff; for home-based entrepreneurs, there’s often no such buffer.
Struggles find small business owners, including solopreneurs like Louise, in every stage of their development and operation, said Lynn Puryear, the regional director of the Akron Minority Business Assistance Center with the Akron Urban League.
“You reflect differently when you lose something,” said Puryear, whose organization also offers resources for rebuilding solo entrepreneurs.
Time, though, is ticking. Louise hopes to reopen her business in time for the late spring rush of proms, weddings and graduations. She’s searching for a commercial cooking space.
“Weezie Cakes is not gone — she just needs to be rebuilt,” she said. “I’m excited to see how that looks, and I’m excited to work with the community.”
Her younger sister, Charlee Harris, created a GoFundMe fundraiser to help her recoup $8,000 in equipment losses. But their damages extend far beyond a fridge, oven and even Louise’s trusted planetary mixer.
Angela and Sean Andrews, married owners of FasTrack Contents & Board Up, a local emergency inventory service company, said everything except the garage is a “total loss.” They helped Louise and Aaron salvage items, including some of Louise’s paintings, a fondant “cake-within-a-cake” casing and an Optimus Prime helmet with an integrated voice changer.
Not everything could be saved.
“Everything dealing with food was trashed,” Louise said. “Phoenix is gone.”
‘Cake Boss’ reality television show inspires launch of Weezie Cakes in Akron
Louise Bane, 42, grew up surrounded by the arts, the second-oldest of five siblings: Myra Harris Pierce, herself, Charisse Harris Wren, Charlee Harris and Charlie Harris II. Since 2004, her family has owned So Fresh Used Auto Sales at 2290 East Ave. in Kenmore. Attached to the dealership is East Ave Market & Gallery, a community art space also in the family’s care.
Louise started sculpting in middle school at Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts. She kept up with it, and in 2021, her first sculptures appeared in the family’s art gallery. (Some of her art is still for sale there.)
Then she discovered the “Cake Boss” reality television series. That’s when she started baking cakes for friends and family. It was challenging, which she loved. And she quickly became good at it.
As she amassed equipment, skills and a digital presence, she began receiving orders. She designated her house a licensed at-home bakery and expanded the business beyond chafing trays at the family’s used car and tire shop. Culinary projects included:
- A Winnie the Pooh-themed gender reveal cake.
- A Lilo and Stitch cake for her niece.
- A biblical bread-and-wine memorial cake.
While her specialty was complex, sculpted cakes, she also found success with her apple pie cookies and lemon cake.
As the fire closed in, their faith steadied them
The Banes didn’t realize how close to death they could have been. They didn’t realize the fire was upstairs with them.
As the fire overtook the bungalow, Louise and Aaron felt a calm they later attributed to their faith as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
“In retrospect, there were so many things I could have said: ‘I love you,’ ‘I’m going to catch you,’ but I just said, ‘Get our phones!’” said Aaron, an independent transportation provider for the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.
“But the moment Louise landed, there was such a sense of relief.”
Their next-door neighbor, Sharon Lewis, gave Louise a robe and dressed Aaron’s bleeding arm in a towel until first responders arrived. When they did, Aaron needed 30 stitches in his arm and elbow from the broken glass. Louise struggled to board the ambulance; she hit her knee on the water spigot on the side of the house as she jumped out the window.
The Red Cross provided toothbrushes and offered counseling to Aaron and Louise on the day of the fire.
Finding shampoo in the rubble: ‘You realize what you don’t have’
First responders told the Banes the electric fire started in the walls at 2:30 a.m.
Seventeen days later, Louise strapped an N95 mask around red-velvet hair and walked through what remained. Flames had stripped the quaint home’s vibrant blue and yellow wallpapers. Smoke clawed toward the beams, striping barren ceilings.
She stepped over rubble and rounded a corner past a wall where charred keys hung to reach her studio. Ashy ovals traced the shapes where her original paintings had previously hung. Piles of soot clouded where furniture sat.
Walls molded from water damage. In the blackened kitchen, cabinets were bereft of their wealth of ingredients, the countertop missing equipment that hallmarked a dozen years of passion.
Louise was planning to paint Phoenix, a gift from Aaron’s grandmother, into a kaleidoscope of colors. That goal, like many others, is now on hold.
While she approaches this season of her life with the optimism she enjoyed while launching her business, the hardest part has been losing irreplaceable items.
“This was a lifetime of collecting,” Louise said. “All of my artwork.”
A special piece she painted when her father, Charlie Harris, died was mounted on an easel in the living room, where the house sustained the most damage. There, Aaron used to enjoy listening to loud music. His playlist often included “Superstar” by Usher and “I Do” by Rotimi, the latter of which reminded him of his marriage to Louise. He used to stay up late, like he did the night of the fire.
Most of his collection of thrifted speakers and subwoofers was lost.
Some losses are discovered in ordinary moments. Others are fleeting, sneaking up on them at random times. For Aaron, seeing a plunger during a trip to Home Depot made him realize how much he and Louise lost.
“I’m buying underwear for the first time again,” said Aaron, who took off two weeks from his job to rest and recover. “The things we buy, they represent us. Your favorite shoes, your favorite jeans, they might have holes in them but they fit you perfectly.
“We’ve lost part of our identity.”
In the bedroom, amidst the rubble, Louise spotted a pink tube on the floor.
“I needed that shampoo just this morning,” she said. “It’s after you start doing something that you realize what you don’t have.”
Letting Akron love back: ‘Healing comes through our vulnerability’
In October 2024, Kemp Boyd, the executive director of Love Akron, a nonprofit that provides mental health support, youth mentorship and grief counseling services, needed help himself.
Kemp, his wife, Stacy, and their six children lost their home in a house fire.
Boyd said the fire helped humble him to receive blessings. Winter coats, home-cooked soup and prayers poured in from across the Akron area.
“What really spoke to me was, ‘You’ve spent so much time loving Akron, now you have to allow Akron to love you back,’” said Boyd, who also serves as the pastor at Streetlight Community Church, head football coach at Garfield Community Learning Center and chair of Akron’s Citizens’ Police Oversight Board.
His family spent 16 months in a Cuyahoga Falls rental.
He said it took time to learn how to pace himself and open up to his grief instead of throwing himself back into work. That process, he added, helped him be present for his family.
The husband-and-wife team of Larry and Sapphire Young was there the night of the fire; the Youngs served as the general contractors in the remodeling process; and they were there earlier this month when the Boyds returned home in a surprise unveiling.
“One thing I say when I talk to other victims of a fire is ‘Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable,’” he said, reflecting on the recovery process as it drew to a close. “Healing comes through our vulnerability, letting people know exactly what it is you need.”
Building a small business again, one cake order at a time
Louise and Aaron have experienced an abundance of people and places willing to help. Neighbors donated clothes and shared words of encouragement.
Aaron said his clients at the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities have been instrumental in his mental recovery. He recalled one client jumping up and down, hugging him the day he returned to work.
“That was such a special moment,” Aaron said.
Phoenix may be gone, and the kitchen search continues, but Louise is poised to rise from the ashes with new equipment and enthusiasm.
Said Louise: “The goal is to move back in here.”