Klotz Florist – A Family Business For Over 60 Years

Vanita Klotz Hicks, NPHS Class of 1949
North Plainfield High School Alumni Association
Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Fall 1997), p. 6

One winter day in 1970, anyone driving by the corner of Greenbrook Road and Jefferson Ave. would discover where just the other day there was a home, store and greenhouses, now there was only a vacant lot. For over 60 years, the Klotz family was in the florist business on that corner.

194 Greenbrook Avenue, North Plainfield, Klotz Florist, store built around the family home

Hugo Klotz and his wife Ida, known as Pop and Mom to all, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1904 with their 2-year-old son, Carl. Hugo's first job in North Plainfield was as a gardener to the McCutchen family, whose home still stands on Rockview Avenue and is now a home for the elderly. He soon realized that in America anyone could own property and work for himself. Within a few years, he built a home in North Plainfield on Greenbrook Road and started a nursery and landscape business.

As the years went by, people would ask Mom to make wedding bouquets and funeral sprays. By 1916 the house was remodeled and a store added. It was called The Home of Flowers. As the business expanded, green houses were built until there were seven, plus a garage/workshop at the rear of the property. The Klotzes also owned the property across Greenbrook Road and built three more large greenhouses on that site. After World War II, this property was sold and is now owned by Milton Ballas, whose family grows flowers there.

Originally, the entire complex was heated by 3 coal furnaces. There was a tall brick chimney on the south side of Greenbrook Road for one of them. When the heating was converted to oil, it became unnecessary and years later was torn down. For many years, you could still read The Home of Flowers in the brickwork. In addition, two of the greenhouses on the north side were sold and moved to another location. In their place, chrysanthemums were grown for cut flowers. In order to get them to bloom in time for football games and other fall events, every afternoon in late summer, a long black cloth was pulled over a frame built over the flower beds. The next morning, after the sun was up, the black cloth was pulled back, thus fooling the flowers into thinking it was fall and the days were short.

Pop Klotz died in 1944, and his son Carl took over the business, managing the greenhouses. His second wife, Edith, was a florist, and she ran the store after Mom retired. Many a North Plainfield High student bought corsages from her to give to his prom dates. When it became cheaper to fly fresh flowers from Florida or California, Carl changed the growing part of the business. Instead of flowers, he grew seedlings, which were then sold to other growers.

For many years, every Palm Sunday was Open House. The spring plants made a spectacular display in the greenhouses, and in the store there were cut flower arrangements and the "Corsage Board," a selection of 10 or 12 corsages were made up and displayed on different backgrounds each year. Each corsage had a number, and a customer could call any time before Easter and simply order his or her preference by number.

Neither I nor my brother Carl were interested in taking over the business (he was County Agent in Morris County until his death in 1988). I moved to Oregon in 1962 and am happily married to Harris Hicks. After Carl Sr. died, Edith moved the seedling business to Metuchen. She is retired, but still active at 85. The North Plainfield property was sold to a group of doctors and a medical building now occupies the corner of Jefferson Avenue and Greenbrook Road.