Though smaller now, flower business is still blooming

VIRGINIA BEACH

When Flowers by King’s opened its doors in 1931, it was located along Virginia Beach Boulevard – a simple, two-lane road at the time.

Princess Anne High School wouldn’t be built next door for another 23 years.

When the florist shop opened, customers trying to phone in an order may have occasionally had a bit of trouble getting through. For a while, the King family didn’t have a dedicated phone line for the business. Instead, they had a party line they shared with several nearby neighbors.

Over the years, the phone number is one of the few things that hasn’t changed at the still family-owned and operated business. After nearly 50 years at its original address – now the site of an IHOP – the family decided to sell half of the original property.

They moved about 200 feet over and opened a new shop next door, where they remained until recently.

In 2007, shortly after Cindy Laufer’s father, Cassius “Cash” King, died, she decided to sell the shop at 4448 Virginia Beach Blvd. It was time to downsize, she said, but not to give up the business.

“My grandparents started out as full-service florists,” Laufer said, referring to DeKoven and Mary Margaret King. “We had five greenhouses on the property on Virginia Beach Boulevard, and we also had a ceramics business, Thalia Ceramics. We started out growing bedding plants, cut flowers.”

In the 1940s, Laufer’s grandparents also had three more florist shops in the Atlantic Avenue area at the Oceanfront.

“One of them was at the Cavalier Hotel,” she said. “My grandmother worked in those three shops but then decided to concentrate on the Virginia Beach Boulevard store.”

And for the past 80 years, there have been plenty of weddings, funerals, gift baskets and Valentine’s Days to keep the family busy. Not to mention all the prom, homecoming and Easter corsages they’ve helped assemble.

Laufer said she doesn’t put together nearly as many of those as she used to. But when she was a little girl, her small hands were perfect for putting together the corsage boxes, and she spent countless hours doing so.

She even modeled Easter bunny corsages each year as a youngster.

“Those aren’t as popular now,” Laufer said. “Corsages are something you go to prom with, but you don’t wear them to church on a holiday.”

It was memories like these that flooded Laufer’s memory after her father died, and she briefly considered selling the longtime family business.

Sally King, Laufer’s mom, said she knew her daughter would end up keeping the business.

“She said, ‘Mother, I just can’t give it up,’ ” King said.

But she did sell the 20 greenhouses the family had long operated on nearly 13 acres in Chesapeake.

Now Flowers by King’s is a much smaller business operating from a shop in an industrial park on Southern Boulevard. The struggling economy over the past three years, Laufer said, put a slowdown on the business.

“But I just could not bring myself to just give it away,” she said. “We just downsized the business and brought it to a much smaller location.”

And just like her dad, Laufer can often found in the shop after it has closed for the evening, putting together a quick arrangement for someone. King said she still remembers spending many Sunday mornings waiting for Laufer’s dad to finish helping a customer with a last-minute arrangement before church when the store was supposed to be closed.

“When you own a business,” King said, “you don’t own the business. It owns you.” 

Rita Frankenberry, 222-5102, rita.frankenberry@pilotonline.com