Callie, Sue and Deb grew up in a beautiful part of the world in a place called Crowdy Head, which is about half an hour north of Taree. The three sisters are extremely close and have built up a business which is known as The Shed Luxe and is operated right here in Taree. The Shed Luxe is a collection of beautiful homewares, gifts, fashion accessories and women’s clothing. ‘We’ve all really had an interest in fashion firstly and then we have kind of moved into the homewares side of things which is becoming a faster passion for all of us really’. This shared passion for retail, design and quality are the values that inspired the sisters when starting The Shed Luxe.  

The Shed Luxe have a really great location and when asked what it’s like running a business out of Taree, Callie, Sue and Deb all commented, ‘we’re surrounded by other fantastic businesses here as well and they all support us and we support them back. I think where we have the edge is our local people support us really strongly’. 

The Shed Luxe found amazing support from locals and from individuals all across Australia, ‘we sell to Melbourne, we sell to Sydney, we sell to regional, Western Australia. Most of that selling for us is through social media’. Deb explains, that just because The Shed Luxe isn’t situated in the city it doesn’t mean that they can’t reach people in cities as their couriers deliver daily.

Jada Stanley grew up on a farm just outside Taree and now lives at Wallabi Point, a little coastal town off Taree, with her husband and kids. She owns Nusa Indah Surfboards, an internationally renowned surfboard and surf fashion company run globally by Jada from Taree. ‘I’m based in Wallabi but we sell boards all over the world’ says Jada.

When asked why she chose to run a global company from Wallabi Point in Taree, Jada comments, ‘I think I was looking for a creative outlet while I was at home with the children. I first created one for myself and then friends and family started ordering boards and I would document those boards on social media.’ When she started the business, Jada found amazing support, help and referrals from the local Taree community and felt that everyone wanted to see her to succeed. And succeed she has. Jada has customers all around the world and works collaboratively with Vogue, Lulu DK and other brands from Positano to London, The Bahamas and the USA.

Carly Black and her husband Ben both grew up in Taree and love its supportive community. When they did move away, they couldn’t wait to get back to Taree, particularly when their daughters were about the start school. ‘We wanted somewhere where they could be a part of the community,’ explains Carly.

Carly and Ben have recently built a new home, with plenty of space inside and a big back yard for the girls to play freely outside. Carly adds, ‘building a house like this in the city would have cost us a lot more money. We were able to have a lot more nice things in this house than we would have if we were to build it somewhere else. This is probably twice the size of what we could have had if we had built the house in the city.’

Working in a regional town has not limited Carly and Ben’s career ambitions, in fact they have prospered. Carly works at Ray White Manning Valley and not only does she love the team but she also loves the challenges and the results she achieves.

Ben is a qualified mechanic and owns his own mechanical business that is growing and thriving with strong local support from the Taree community. He is growing his customer base every year.