WELLYHAUS BLOOMS

Kate Higgins and her husband set up a flower stand outside their Winnetka home during the pandemic and would stock it each morning with floral bouquets.

“We thought it was so sad that people couldn’t be together, and this was a fun way to put some happiness in their days,” Higgins says. “I made these little bouquets that people could take and leave money in a box. I couldn’t make enough of them—they kept selling out. My husband and I would put flowers out at 8 a.m. and they would be gone by 8:10 a.m. Our little Wellyhaus Flower Stand was a frenzy.”

While Higgins was delighted by her customers’ love of her arrangements, she discovered (quite by accident) that a key component was missing.

“It was so sweet how many people would text me pictures of their bouquets when they would get them home,” Higgins says. “I was so excited to see the flowers, but I couldn’t get past how some of the flowers would just be shoved into a vase. I thought the flowers looked pretty, but that they would look so much better if they were in a vase designed for them.”

With this new-found consumer intel and her younger child graduating from New Trier this June, the timing was right for Higgins to open the brick-and-mortar version of her flower stand. Named Wellyhaus, the shop’s moniker pays tribute to Higgins’ affection for both Wellington boots and the spirit of the European countryside the boots invoke.

“I think I always knew I had this store in me,” Higgins reflects, declining the notion that opening a retail space had come as a surprise to her. After all, her mother had been an avid gardener in Higgins’ home state of Ohio. And Higgins honed her own retail skills after taking a job with Betsy Karp, owner of Vintage Pine in Chicago.

“Working with Betsy was amazing for so many reasons, but she was the first person to expose me to design, antiques, and importing,” she says. “When Betsy opened Ashley & Sloane, I was able to help her with merchandising. I learned so much.”

Last spring, Higgins and her family had a summer vacation planned for France when she signed the lease for her shop’s future home.

“The vacation actually ended up being more of a buying trip,” explains Higgins, as she walks through the treasures now beautifully placed throughout her store. “My goal was to source special pieces that couldn’t be found just anywhere,” she says. “I love that it’s all a little moody.”

Higgins filled two containers with merchandise for her store. “Although I had watched Besty Karp import items from Europe for years, I really had to learn by doing,” she recalls. “There are so many details when you import and you kind of learn as you go. But we had so many great interactions and now I know how to do this.”

One of Higgins’ favorite pieces is a Parisian bar from the 1920s that she’s using as the checkout counter for Wellyhaus. “It’s for sale. It’s very expensive,” she says with a laugh, “but it’s for sale.” Higgins worked with her “dream team” on the buildout of her store—Michael Del Piero as her designer and Patrick McHugh as her contractor.

“They really brought my vision to life,” Higgins explains pointing to some antique slabs she purchased in France that were repurposed for shelving in her store. “I can feel the Belgian-French influence in this space. Simple, real, authentic, interesting textures—nothing mass-produced.”

A collection of glazed ceramic vases, each dubbed with a name to reflect its purpose (Entry, Forager, Branch, Bedside), testify to Higgins’ realized dream of creating a vessel specifically for her bouquets. Working with her potter Melissa Monroe in Mokena, Illinois, Higgins designed an exclusive line of Wellyhaus vases.

“I want my customers to be able to pick up a bouquet and drop it into a vase where it will look its best,” she says, “We’ve been able to do this with our Wellyhaus vases. We can hardly keep them in stock.”

In addition to selling her Wellyhaus ceramics, imported décor items, and her beloved “Welly” boots, there will be flowers of all kinds for customers to buy.

“I’m going to run Wellyhaus as a flower market,” she says. “I’m not planning on doing weddings or big events. We will have pre-made arrangements daily or flowers you can DIY with unique stems you can’t get anywhere else. My whole deal is authentic living. Food, wine, flowers, and friends. I hope people just come in, decompress, and leave feeling inspired.”

Wellyhaus is located at 928 Green Bay Road in Winnetka. For more information, visit wellyhaus.com.