MEMBER PROF 



RIFF FLOWER SHOP & GREENHOUSE 



New Vistas 



RIFF FLOWER SHOP has been 

 around a long time. Dave 

 and Linda Hutchins bought 

 the building from its owner when 

 they moved here in 1977, but the 

 name comes from a previous 

 owner — a man named Riff who'd 

 bought the bloci< in 1947. And 

 there'd been a flower shop there 

 before that. 



Dave and Linda had co-owned 

 with Dave's sister three flower 

 shops in the Boston area, but 

 Dave's originally from upstate New 

 York and Linda, from Concord and 

 "we just never got used to city life" 

 They'd been looking throughout 

 northern New England for an appro- 

 priate business when the mortgage 

 officer (who'd married a florist also 

 looking for a business to buyl at 

 their bank told them about a place 

 up in Lancaster he and his wife had 

 seen and rejected. For Dave and 

 Linda, it seemed ideal. 



The property was a package — a 

 house and three greenhouses on 

 North Road and the Riff Block on 

 Main Street at the corner of Elm, 

 just beyond the bridge over the Is- 

 rael River. The river bisects the 

 business district — but most of the 

 businesses are on the north side; 

 only the Riff Block and City Hall are 

 south. 



BUILT AROUND 1900, The block is a 

 flat-roofed three-story clapboarded 

 cube topped with a wide wooden 

 cornice. 



In the top two stories are apart- 

 ments; the ground floor — with bay 

 show windows and recessed door- 

 ways, is designed to hold three 

 shops. Riff Flower Shop has always 

 been on the corner; the two other 



spaces were rented out. But, al- 

 though the store front hasn't 

 changed, businesses do: "Some 

 would last six months, some a 

 year. ..it was very unstable, more 

 trouble than it was worth. We're on 

 the wrong side of the bridge." 



This year, the Hutchinses made 

 major changes. They took over the 

 other two areas themselves, dou- 

 bling the size of Riff Flower Shop to 

 about 3000 square feet. 



They also bought an abandoned 

 2 1/2-story 30'x50' wooden building on 

 the river side of the Riff Block. This 

 was to be torn down to create park- 

 ing for twenty cars. When this was 

 done, they saw that their view of 

 the river and the small park beside 

 it was "about the best view in town." 



Partly to add interest to the aus- 

 tere, nearly windowless north wall 

 and partly to utilize the view, a ten- 

 foot-wide deck will be built along 

 this side of the building. A bed of 

 shrubs (and annuals in the summer) 

 will run along the front of the deck; 

 a brick walk will separate the bed 

 and the parking. An access ramp 

 will be built ("we don't have many 

 handicapped, but we do have a lot 

 of people with strollers") from the 

 parking area onto the deck. 



The main entrance will be from 

 the deck: a new door is being cut 

 through the north wall. Customers 

 can still enter from the sidewalk 

 through the entrances (side-by-side 

 up a small flight of broad steps) of 

 the two previously rented spaces, 

 but the old corner entrance to Riff 

 will no longer be used. (A small 

 potted tree will probably stand in 

 front of the recess.) 



Not just an inviting place to 

 pause and look over displays before 



entering the shop, the deck will be 

 used in other ways. The new shop 

 plans include a small food prepara- 

 tion area and another of tables and 

 chairs where customers can sit and 

 enjoy coffee and desserts ("home- 

 made, but not made here"). The 

 deck is high enough to allow people 

 to look past parked cars onto the 

 river and, on warm days, people will 

 sit on the deck as well. Trees (white 

 ash and crabapple) planted next to 

 the walk will offer color and shade. 



INSIDE, the walls between the three 

 commercial spaces are being taken 

 down. Some things can't be re- 

 moved; the chimney's still there (a 

 pot-bellied stove will be beside it), 

 as well as an enclosed area contain- 

 ing the stairs to the apartments, 

 and these will be used to define ar- 

 eas within the larger space. Obvi- 

 ously, some of the basic structure 

 needs to remain: exposed vertical 

 supports will be covered by lattice- 

 work, but, where walls once were, 

 customers will move through 

 broadly arched openings. White 

 walls and ceilings ("the displays will 

 be the decoration") and the wood 

 floors, painted probably teal, 

 throughout will help unify the once- 

 separate units. 



Although the changes being 

 made in the basic structure were 

 precisely planned, the uses of new 

 areas still are not. These will 

 evolve, but some aspects are set. 

 Along with the new coffee shop, 

 there will be expanded product 

 lines and a larger, more private 

 wedding consultation center ( "with a 

 couch"). 



In the building torn down, they 

 found a workable walk-in cooler and 



THE PLANTSMAN 



