New Owners of Conroy’s Flower Shops Hope to Blossom in Sun Belt

Conroy’s, the flower shop franchise, has some new owners who are hoping the business will grow like a weed.

The partners, Carter Miller, Stanley Schwartz, Arthur Burdof and David Rosen, purchased the business from the estate of the company’s late founder, Christopher Conroy, on Dec. 3 in what Miller describes as a “multimillion-dollar transaction.”

Miller, a former hotel developer and amateur orchid grower who is now Conroy’s chief executive, says the partners are opening three franchises in Texas this year and plan to open a franchise in Atlanta within two years.

The company had grown quickly under Christopher Conroy’s direction, with the distinctive red-brick, open-air shops popping up around the Southland like daffodils in the spring. But Conroy died at 45 in November, 1984, before realizing his dream to take the Los Angeles-based company national.

Conroy’s new owners plan to do just that, and plan to finance the expansion with several million dollars of their own funds, in addition to profits from Conroy’s.

Under its new management, most of Conroy’s growth will be confined to the Sun Belt, Miller says, because weather in the Frost Belt would force Conroy’s “to deviate from our format” of open-air shops. However, the chain plans to make an exception and venture into Seattle, he says, because although the weather is cool there, its also moist and, naturally, good for flowers.

Most of its 70 franchises are located in Southern California. The business now has sales in excess of $30 million a year.

Miller and his partners--who have varied backgrounds in agriculture and real estate--are also arranging a joint venture with flower growers. “We might help a grower finance the expansion of a greenhouse, for example, and they’ll give us exclusive arrangements on a product,” Miller says.

Such a venture would help assure Conroy’s a supply of sometimes hard-to-get flowers--such as roses around Valentine’s Day--at relatively stable prices, he says.

Conroy’s customers aren’t likely to notice the change in ownership, since the new owners plan to keep the physical design of Conroy’s flower shops the same. “In many ways, the man was a genius,” Miller said of Conroy’s founder, who had a knack for picking good shop locations. “We’re not throwing away that genius, just improving on it.”