Wealthy at Charles creates urban green oasis in Cherry Hill neighborhood

By: Deborah Johnson Wood

When Lenn Beardsley drove past the abandoned building and lot at the corner of Wealthy SE and Charles in Grand Rapids he wondered why no one was doing anything with a property that seemed to have so many possibilities. Soon he and his partner, Michael Schimpf, purchased it and two years later the duo decided what they were going to do with it.

In 2005, they opened Wealthy At Charles, a home décor store that carries upscale home accessories and fresh flowers. They also created their own living space on the second floor.

This summer, the big news has been the new garden that fills the corner lot.

“We have created an urban sanctuary. It’s kind of a traffic stopper,” says Beardsley.

They kept the “bones” of a previous garden, including the mature trees—a redbud, Japanese maple, weeping pine and others—and the Italianate garden entrance set into the building, an architectural element imported from a home on the city’s West Side.

The garden, designed by Rooks Landscaping, helped Beardsley and Schimpf incorporate a variety of elegant details, including a custom made handwrought iron fence, stone steps, 95 boxwoods lining the crushed-stone pathways and salvaged bricks from the old Wealthy Street roadway.

In addition to grasses, Asian pines and other greenery, white and lavender flowering plants accent the merchandise: handmade garden containers, arbors, cast metal garden furniture and local artist Amy Greving’s concrete birdbaths, fountains and garden bowls.

“We use the garden just as a beautiful garden on the corner for the neighborhood and for us because we live on the second level,” Beardsley notes, “and as a place to sell garden related things.”

View the garden on RGTV:

Source: Lenn Beardsley, Wealthy At Charles

Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at deborah@rapidgrowthmedia.com.