Lee Cagley was born January 31, 1951 in the Panama Canal Zone. His father was a civil engineer for the Panama Canal Company, and after he left that job, Cagley spent his childhood in Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Des Moines, Iowa. He started to attend Rice University but left before he completed his degree in architecture. Cagley returned to college a few years later and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in interior design in 1975.