Atria Inc.’s roots go back 22 years, but its husband-wife owners have been firmly planted in Connecticut’s interior horticulture business about twice that long.
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Atria Inc.'s roots go back 22 years, but its husband-wife owners have been firmly planted in Connecticut's interior horticulture business about twice that long.
Steering Atria are principals Joanne and Bruce Crowle, president and vice president, respectively. His focus is sales; hers is accounting and human resources. They have about 12 employees, including technicians who water and maintain plants.
Atria's leafy, colorful, decorative work is visible at about 350 locations statewide, including some of the Hartford area's most notable addresses, from the Gold Building and CityPlace lobbies and offices to East Hartford's Pratt & Whitney and offices in West Hartford's Blue Back Square.
Greenwich High School sweethearts, the Crowles will mark 45 years of marriage this summer and turn 65.
A $50 start
Bruce worked around plants after college, but wanted to open his own business. The Crowles found a tiny shop in Greenwich and borrowed $50 from Bruce's father to put down for security.
They opened Decora in 1976, selling indoor plants, macramé plant hangers and terrarium gardens with colored sand.
“There was hardly anybody in the industry doing what we started doing,” Joanne said. Bruce referred to their next decade in business as the “Roaring '80s, because there was so much demand for interior plants.”
They did retail, restaurants, residential and rentals, but landed Xerox in Greenwich about 1980, which started them going indoors to offices. In a big job, they landscaped the atrium at the new Hyatt Regency in Greenwich in 1986.
“We were young and we thought, 'Oh this is great, we're going to do one of these every year,' ” Bruce said. “That's pretty much the biggest project we ever did.”
New beginnings
Approached by suitors, they sold Decora in 1990, with Bruce working in sales for the new owner for two years. The Crowles moved to Cheshire in 1992, with Bruce doing sales for a landscape contractor.
But entrepreneurs at heart, they opened Atria out of their home in 1994 with a focus on corporate clients. Hartford's Gold Building was Atria's first big customer about 1996 and remains a client today.
Atria is now based in Wolcott in a 13,000-square-foot building, largely storage for Christmas trees and other holiday decorations. Holiday decorating comprises a big piece of Atria's winter business. Its work includes the large Christmas tree outside The Cheesecake Factory at Blue Back Square.
Atria's warehouse also serves as a brief holding area for flowers and other plants, many from Florida, rotated into businesses on a regularly to keep plants fresh and seasonal. Atria also plants exterior containers.
Atria sells the plants, maintains them and provides the containers — even matching pots to corporate colors if necessary. It's about designing plants and containers to go with offices, not “plant-plopping,” Bruce said.
Quick service
Atria replaces plants that die, often within 24 hours, free of charge. Bruce said customer complaints present golden opportunities because if they fix problems quickly it reflects good customer service.
One of the biggest challenges Atria overcame was the recession, when plants were low-hanging fruit for cost-cutting, Bruce said. Business suffered between 2008 and 2011. The Crowles cut salaries 10 percent for themselves and managers; other staff didn't get raises. It was painful, but Atria avoided layoffs and business rebounded, growing about 5 percent annually the last three years, Bruce said.
The Crowles describe their management style as compassionate, fair and easy-going, with mutual respect between them and staff.
To unwind, Bruce tends to their Cheshire yard, where he says gardening is his meditation. The couple enjoys visiting their two daughters and three grandchildren in California, and son in Vermont.
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