’Tis the season to dress your home for the holidays. Whether this is a chance to let loose your inner designer or you want it done, now, a festive entrance or interior can bring home a little bit of the season’s magic, no matter what holiday you celebrate.
If you fall into the latter category, there are plenty of local florists and designers who can help. Among them is fleurdetroit, a Bloomfield Hills-based multi-disciplinary design house, floral studio and retail shop for home and garden.
The team at fleurdetroit can help homeowners create a lush and festive entryway or interior, whether it's an entirely new look or just to dress up traditional decor — and teach them as they go, if they want.
"We like to make design approachable for people," says co-owner and CEO Phillip Morici. "A lot of people don't feel that they're creative. So, it's fun teaching and showing them that it's not difficult. You can have a simple entrance designed really well, or it can be an extravagant entrance designed well that just takes a little more effort."
Morici began his business by managing the landscape maintenance for a couple of large properties in Oakland County. By the time he graduated from Oakland University in 2002, he already had a thriving business. He says the transition into fleurdetroit happened quite by accident.
"We had our landscape offices in our current location, and we were importing and gathering objects for the home and garden and storing them here. We created an environment for our office and people just kept stopping in to see what we were doing. I half-heartedly said we needed to capitalize on this traffic and should probably set up a small retail shop. We were still servicing our landscape families, and the retail shop just kept growing. Then, the floral component happened. All organically."
The fleurdetroit (fleaurdetroit.com) design campus in Bloomfield Hills houses the retail shop, greenhouses and floral and landscape studios; visitors can explore everything from the outdoor courtyards to the indoor showrooms. The shop offers everything from floral arrangements to new and vintage decor items, candles and books. There are also event spaces available to reserve.
The fleur team includes florists, horticulturists, designers and landscapers who all collaborate to achieve layered, nuanced and gorgeously curated designs across multiple disciplines — they are also ready to answer design questions and make suggestions. There are also workshops open to the public and an informative online journal that offers advice and keeps readers up to date on the latest goings-on at the center.
Morici says, "We have a really great staff. We put a lot of energy into attracting, supporting, training and building a good team to provide a service to our customers."