Prime Commercial Property—

Lexington Gardens,

5.2-Acre Lot Are Up For Sale

By John Voket

While customers have always found a wide variety of gardening needs, plantings, housewares, gifts, friendly advice and old-fashioned customer service at Lexington Gardens, this week visitors to the Church Hill Road landmark will be finding a personal note in their shopping bags announcing the store and property it resides upon are up for sale.

Owners Tom and Carol Johnson, who first bought the store when its original corporate owners vacated the location in 1983, have themselves decided it is time to begin a new chapter in their lives and will “move on to other pursuits.”

“When I bought the place, I said when my first employees’ grandchildren started coming in looking for their first job, it would be time for me to retire,” Mr Johnson told The Newtown Bee this week. “And that has started happening.”

From the youngest stock clerk to one of his first employees, octogenarian Mike Kearns who still puts in a few hours a week, the Johnsons say they will miss the staff and their longtime customers the most.

“I always valued Mike’s advice. He’s got that old-school farmer’s sensibility,” Mr Johnson said of his oldest staffer.

According to the memo the Johnsons are issuing this week, the family’s hope is to find someone to carry on the business, “a true destination store.” The family is announcing the opportunity now, “when the store is decorated for the holidays and in its full glory,” Mr Johnson added.

He said neither of his daughters, who worked in the shop for years, is able to currently take over the business; one has an active clinical psychologist practice in Boston and the other is engaged as a dancer with the New York City Ballet.

“I’d really like to see someone carry on…make the place even better with new concepts and products,” Mr Johnson said. He believes the secret to Lexington Gardens’ success is tied to its highly unique product lines, which the family obtains from select buyers who scour the globe for the practical kitchen gadgets, hand tools, decorations. and multitude of other items which delight visitors 12 months a year.

“Our products cost money, but the ideas are free,” Mr Johnson said. “I often think of this as an idea store, because we have the informed staff who can help you take what you’ve bought and create something special. We always are asking what the customers are trying to establish with their purchases.”

While about 65,000 customers a year visit Lexington Gardens, Mr Johnson is on a first name basis with hundreds of them.

“These folks have been coming in at least once a week since the business first opened in 1973,” he recalled. Lexington Gardens started as a franchise and subsidiary of the Campbell’s Soup Company, which patterned its East Coast chain of garden and gift stores on a family-owned business in Lexington, Mass.

The sale is listed through Douglas Rose of Scalzo Commercial Realty, and encompasses the 21,000-square-foot business, nursery, and 150 parking spaces on a 5.2 acre lot as well as more than $1 million in inventory. While the primary goal is to sell the entire package outright, Mr Johnson said his family may consider splitting the package and becoming leaseholders if the right proposition is negotiated.

“Carrying on as it is will require 24-hour attention because of course you are dealing with plants and living things,” Mr Johnson said. The store is also home to a pair of huge koi fish that occupy a pool in the nursery, and “Baby,” a quarter-century-old blue and gold macaw who Mr Johnson says has a 401k plan and is officially listed in the corporation as a human resources director.

“Baby is actually very good at sizing up potential new hires,” Mr Johnson said. “In this business it’s critical to hire people who like people. And this bird can sense congenial people, so we introduce any prospective employee to Baby.”

If Baby nods approval, the prospect is apparently hired, but a swift shake of the handsome macaw’s head means the job candidate must move on, he added.

While holiday season rivals the height of spring planting season for bringing in business, Mr Johnson believes anytime is a good time to stop in at Lexington Gardens.

“It’s a great place to lose your husband for a few hours,” he said with a wink and a sly smile.