After spending more than two decades making Bel Air bloom, a florist and local business leader is bidding farewell to Main Street.
Patti Pearce has announced plans to retire and close Flowers By Design, which has been on South Main Street for 22 years.
"I was just looking to downsize because the daily work was just too much for me," the floral store's sole proprietor explained, noting she plans to close Dec. 23, just before Christmas.
"Christmas season is so big for us, and we decorate a lot of the businesses on Main Street with garlands and pine roping and wreaths," she said.
The vacancy will be at least the second store to close on the east side of South Main Street recently, as the adjacent building remains vacant after Little New York Deli left.
Pearce said she will miss her hundreds of customers, many of whom were crying when they heard she was closing, but she said she plans to continue decorating the annual gala for Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and decorating at Maryland Golf and Country Clubs.
Pearce said she is sad to leave the town and has enjoyed all her customers.
"Really, they have become friends," she said.
"I never wanted to be in a strip mall; I never wanted to be in Harford Mall. I love the feel of Main Street and when I opened, there weren't any cute [shops]" like hers, she said, explaining there were then, as now, many vacancies along the street.
"I took a chance. I was young; I was still in my 20s," she said.
Pearce, who is in her 50s and lives in Forest Hill, has also spent the past 22 years as a marshal for the Bel Air Christmas Parade. After she was invited back, she told the parade committee she would return to lead the parade next year.
Pearce said she always opened her store to let mascots in the parade, like the Oriole bird, get dressed there. This year's parade and tree lighting was Dec. 7.
She also decorated a number of local businesses, including barbershops. In 2010, Flowers By Design was named Bel Air's Business of the Year.
"My goal was always not to be just self-serving but to be good for everyone," she said.
Among town residents, downtown employees and visitors, Pearce's store became known for the colorful seasonal displays in her large front windows.
"Our windows are our No. 1 form of advertising," she said.
Pearce, who leases her building, said she had hoped her head designer would take over the business but that did not work out.
"Business is great and the town has been wonderful," she said, adding she hopes to see other creative stores stay afloat on Main Street.
"A lot of the big dollars come from lawyers, not artists like me," she said of the law firms that occupy many of the buildings along the street.