It’s the stuff of family legend: Lee and Velma McShan buy land on what was then rural Garland Road. With little more than patience and each other, they proceed to build a business.
They landscape Casa View. They win the Neiman Marcus account. They put on spectacular floral displays and receive national attention. Yet they manage to remain an East Dallas mom-and-pop store, where customers still receive individual attention.
“I can remember the cotton fields, when Garland Road had two lanes,” says Bruce McShan, who was born 20 days after his parents moved to a frame house on the land and who now heads the company.
In those days, only one other store was within sight – a small general store called The Trading Post – and public transportation meant taking a Greyhound bus from Downtown.
That was half a century ago. Now a Dallas institution whose caladium-leafed logo is a common site on delivery trucks throughout the City, McShan’s celebrates its 50th anniversary this month.
McShan admits the family’s business practices are unusual. Unlike many large operations, the store remains a hands-on family venture, where customers can always speak with a decision-maker in the business.
The company’s 50th anniversary celebration will be low-key, McShan says, with a luncheon for current and former employees and refreshments for store visitors. But behind the understated celebration is a success story that saw an $11-a-day business transformed into what the family calls the world’s largest retail florist housed under one roof.
McShan credits the store’s growth to the work ethic of his father, Lee. He believed in doing business by the Golden Rule, McShan says. Lee and his wife, Velma, supported numerous neighborhood activities, with Lee joining and eventually leading many civic organizations in our neighborhood.
Bruce and wife Sheri continue the tradition, supporting everything from schools to arts and civic organizations to community health initiatives. Bruce also has worked to convert the company’s delivery vans to run on natural gas, not only saving money but also helping reduce pollution.
Will the business continue in the family for another generation? Bruce and Sheri have one daughter, a freshman in high school, and she hasn’t indicated an interest one way or another.
But the family business isn’t likely to stray from the philosophy that has made it successful: “Flowers are the tangible conveyance of the intangible feeling of love,” Lee McShan used to say before his death in 1990.
“Regardless of what we send flowers for, the message received is always love.”
