Emphasizing Design, A Fort Hunt Floral Business Flourishes

Just a few months after The Virginia Florist made its debut in the Hollin Hall Shopping Center, store owner Kevin Greene says business has taken off.

“We had a wonderful Christmas season,” said Greene, “and there were a hundred men in here on Valentine’s Day.” 

Greene thinks customers enjoy the availability of his unique merchandise near other useful stores, such as The Variety Store. And Greene says opening a store in a Fort Hunt locale wasn’t a hard sell.

Amanda Mertin, manager of the Hollin Hall store, says Greene is  “passionate about this area and its history.”  As evidence of this, Mertin says, Greene has old maps of the area hanging in the store.

One of them is from 1890 and shows a proposed parkway from Rosslyn to Mount Vernon that never got built.  Instead, he says, a streetcar line went through and gave rise to Belle View, and then around 1930 that route became a road.  Greene knows a lot about the area’s history.

Greene was a journalist in the architectural field and started two magazines.  Then, after getting his MBA from William and Mary, he joined the Leo A. Daly Architectural Firm where he headed the marketing department.  During his tenure there, the Leo A. Daly firm designed Terminal C of Reagan National Airport; the new Italian Embassy; and the World War II memorial.

From 1998-2000, Greene helped to write the treatise Architectural Practice and enjoyed being with his family.  “I spent two years writing a book and taking my kids to the coast,” he says.  Today, Greene’s children, are 27, 24, and 21.  He and his wife Kathy currently live near River Farm.

Greene got into the floral business in 2000 when he bought the flower shop in Belle View.  He knew the business would be “viable in a depression” because his grandfather had been the largest florist in Seattle from the 1930s through the 1960s. 

When Greene opened The Virginia Florist in Belle View, the industry was changing.  “You can’t just be a mom and pop store,” he says, because many supermarkets and convenience stores now carry lower-end flowers.  “You have to have better flowers.”

Greene doesn’t only sell flowers, though.  As Mertin explains, the store carries “eclectic gift items – a little of everything.”

The Virginia Florist in Hollin Hall carries jewelry, scented candles, lotions, pillows, and even furniture, in addition to flowers.

Jennifer Krieger, of Waynewood, says she used to go to The Virginia Florist in Belle View, but she is glad there is now a shop closer to home. 

“I love the store,” she says.  “The display is beautiful.  I buy teacher gifts for my own kids.”

Krieger adds that she appreciates that Greene supports all of her school’s silent auction fundraisers.  “He always donates posters,” she said.