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June 14. 1900. 



The Weekly Florists' Review^ 



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THE RETAIL 



FLORIST 



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A MODEL FLOWER STORE. 



The Muir Establishment, Chicago. 



To the man brought up in the busi- 

 ness the first glance serves to reveal the 

 fact if a room was originally intended 

 for a flower store, or for some general 

 purpose. No reasonable expenditure will 

 refit a store intended for ordinary uses 

 and make it pass for one built by a 

 florist for his own purposes. There is 

 the same diflference that is found in 

 ready-to-wear coats, after alteration, if 

 <>ompared with the work of a good tailor. 

 If clothes make the man, as we are 

 often told, the store goes a long way 

 toward shaping the character of the 

 business done in it. The subtle in- 

 fluence of environment is felt by all 

 i-oncerned, from proprietor to customer. 



The trouble with remodeling an old 

 store, or fitting up a new one, for a 

 florist 's use is that you usually can do 

 little more than move in some fixtures 

 and hang out a sign; you seldom have 

 the right kind of a room to begin with, 

 and you cannot get away from the im- 

 pression that an equal expenditure would 

 have made, perhaps, a much better 

 looking drug store than it did flower 

 shi.p. 



It was some such considerations as 

 these that influenced John T. Muir, 



when he set about looking for a per- 

 manent location, to determine to begin 

 fitting up his store by digging a hole in 

 the ground; in other words, he figured 

 that to get what he wanted, he'd have 

 to build; he couldn't buy it ready made, 

 or get it through remodeling. Being of- 

 lered a good * ' deal " on a piece of va- 

 cant property, at Forty-seventh street and 

 Grand boulevard, which is in one of the 

 best residence neighborhoods in Chicago, 

 Mr. Muir put up a building in which is 

 a flower store which will serve as a 

 model for other builders; indeed, it has 

 been visited by many whose purpose it 

 was to gather ideas as to the arrange- 

 ment of an up-to-date flower store. 



The Muir Building. 



The building is known as the Ken- 

 wood bank building, from the fact that 

 Mr. Muir leased the corner room to the 

 financial institution of that name. The 

 building is two stories high, designed 

 in the later Italian style, with twelve 

 stores in all, the upper floors being 

 devoted to suites of offices of the better 

 class. The building is well finished 

 throughout and only tenants of the best 

 class were admitted, but it is in the 

 north store, on the boulevard side, that 

 our trade interest centers, for this is the 

 room reserved by Mr. Muir for his own 

 use. 



Peabody & Beauley were the architects 

 and are to be credited with excellent 

 work, but of course the special conven- 

 iences which make the place the best 

 appointed flower store in the west were 

 of Mr. Muir's own suggestion, and, in- 

 deed, he designed a good part of the 

 fixtures. 



The Flower Store. 



The flower store is 30x60, divided by 

 a cross partition so that the salesroom 

 is 30x35. The general features of the 

 room are shown excellently in one of 

 the accompanying illustrations. The dis- 

 play cases on each side are let into the 

 walls. The wide, deep, cool room for 

 stock is flush with the rear wall of the 

 room, standing in the center of the 

 building where access may be had with 

 equal facility from the salesroom or 

 from the workroom. The glass in the 

 doors and all the fixture cases is beveled 

 plate leaded in as small diamond-shaped 

 panes. The beams of the ceiling are re- 

 flected in Verd antique in the chip 

 mosaic floor. The deep windows are 

 white tiled, raised only a few inches. 

 Between them is the entrance, with 

 inner and outer doors to prevent strong 

 winds doing damage, narrower than 

 most builders would use. 



There are no "counters" in the store; 

 all the fixtures not built into the wall 

 are movable. The tables are solid ma- 

 hogany, marble topped, with shelves be- 

 neath of heavy plate glass capable of 

 sustaining considerable weight, and here 

 is displayed a large line of vases of 

 varying material, including a quantity 

 of the famous Syderol ware from Bohe- 

 mia. Mr. Muir finds it possible to do 

 quite a trade in these goods at a satis- 

 factory profit; besides, they add much 

 to the attractiveness of the store. The 

 display tables being of varying shapes 



A Model Flower Store, that of Muir, Chicago. 



