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Flower Shop Rises From The Ashes

Photo by DEREK MAUL

Sonya Kennedy and her husband, Lee, moved their business next door after a fire destroyed their Cottage Florist & Gift Shop at 10615 Riverview Drive, Riverview. "We're reinventing ourselves to focus more on flowers," she said. "We want to make the yard pretty, and we'll still be doing our best, putting more into the arrangements than people expect."

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By DEREK MAUL

Tribune correspondent

Published: January 28, 2009

RIVERVIEW - At 5 p.m. Dec. 30, Sonya Kennedy locked up The Cottage Florist & Gift Shop for the day and drove home.

"I got a call 20 minutes later that firetrucks were at the store," she said. "The fire burned the back half of the store, but smoke and water damage destroyed everything. They think it was electrical."

Three Riverview fire stations responded, and the blaze was out 30 minutes later. But the business had taken a devastating hit.

A conservative estimate of the financial loss was more than $130,000, said family friend and Riverview resident Mike Lawrence. He said Kennedy and her husband, Lee Kennedy, worked hard to clean the place up, then sold what was salvageable at a huge yard sale. "Everything smelled like an ash tray," Lawrence said.

The Kennedys purchased the business in 2000. "We gutted the store, changed the name, changed everything," Sonya Kennedy said. "We try to make things extra nice, always address problems right away, and the community responded."

Born in Fairfield, Calif., and raised in Moncks Corner, just outside of Charleston, S.C., she has been working with flowers since she was a teen. "My aunt and my mom worked in flower shops, and they dragged me into it," she said. "I started when I was 16."

She met Robert Lee Kennedy Jr. of Riverview when he was stationed at Charleston Air Force Base. They married in 1980, lived in Moncks Corner for several years, then moved to Riverview when Lee was hired by the Tampa Electric Co. in 1987.

"My father-in-law owns Bob's Bug Blasters," Sonya Kennedy said. "He's been here since the' 50s and remembers when the flower shop was the post office. I was a stay-at-home mom for a while, then worked part-time with flower shops before we opened our own business."

The timing of the fire was devastating. "This is a critical time for sales," she said. "Stores already have their Valentine's Day stuff out, and you can lose business in a heartbeat."

After three weeks of scrambling, she re-opened next door in a building that has the character to match her business' "cottage" name.

"We're reinventing ourselves to focus more on flowers," she said. "We want to make the yard pretty, and we'll still be doing our best, putting more into the arrangements than people expect. When it says 'from The Cottage,' then that means something."

Wholesalers have promised to work closely with Kennedy to help her get off the ground again, and the shop's staff remains enthusiastic and committed.

"I've lived in Riverview 491/2 years," said employee Janet Williams. "I just love these people. We just feel like family, and Kennedy is a friend to everybody. I used to be a Weeki Wachee Springs mermaid, but I really do enjoy this - it's become my life."

The work involved in a reopening may be stressful, but Kennedy believes her business will come back stronger than ever.

"I've become a Riverview person in the past 20 years," she said. "Come see us. When people come in for the first time, they're always amazed."

MEET SONYA KENNEDY

Owner, The Cottage Florist & Gift Shop, 10615 Riverview Drive, Riverview

BORN: Fairfield, Calif., 1961

EDUCATION: Berkley High School, Moncks Corner, S.C., 1979

MARRIED: Robert Lee Kennedy Jr., 1980

CHILDREN: Christopher, 25; Kelly 24

MOVED TO RIVERVIEW: 1987

FAVORITE FLOWER: peony

CONTACT: (813) 672-9681, riverviewcottageflorist.com

Derek Maul can be reached at derekmaul@gmail.com.

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