A life of flowers, art and business: Becky Smith is retiring

Becky Smith was one of those little girls who, in spring and summer, would regularly collect clippings of weeds, twigs and little wildflowers she found around her family’s home. “I’d bring them inside and stick them in a Mason jar and set them out,” she said recently at her business, Shelter Island Florist on North Ferry Road. 

That’s the through line of her life and work, where she has been the Island’s only florist for four-and-a-half decades. It’s a life devoted to beauty. Now the commercial aspect of that life will be ending next month, when Ms. Smith retires.

“It’s time,” she said, surrounded in the front of the shop by flowers and plants of every color and description, the bright perfume of each combining for a happy mix. Here and there are examples of her own striking creations of driftwood sculpture, one standing in graceful curves and arcs in a tall glass container, competing easily next to tall orchids.  

She’s looking forward to spending more time with her sons, Ben and Derrick and their families, and doting more on her grandson, Kai. She also wants to travel, to spend time with her sister Mary, who lives on Kiawah Island, S.C. Other travels will be an adventure of discovery she’s planning in Massachusetts. Working for years with a couple of flower wholesalers there, they’ve created a strong bond of friendship, but solely through phone conversations. 

“I can’t wait to put faces to the names and voices,” Ms. Smith said with a smile.

As the Island’s only florist since the early 1980s, she realizes the loss the Island will face when she retires, and is eagerly looking for a buyer for her business. There are some candidates who have expressed interest, but so far, it has only proceeded to that stage.

AN ISLAND LIFE

Born in Greenport Hospital, Ms. Smith is a lifelong Islander. That girl who took what she found around her home and arranged in jars was raised by a family with a respect for the land and an appreciation of beauty. She spoke about her family’s small vegetable farm on what was known as Hoye Hill, and her mother and father, Betty and Miles, as “frontier-type people.” Play time for young Becky had to wait, she said, until her chores were done. 

Her sense of beauty was influenced by her grandmother, Estelle Hoye, an accomplished artist who had studied at the Pratt Institute, and was renowned for her watercolors, many of them of flowers. At one point, Ms. Hoye’s work was sold by her granddaughter in the flower shop. Her sister Mary is an artist, and her niece Bonnie Hoye is a well-known illustrator and portraitist.

At Shelter Island High School, Ms. Smith was taught by a charismatic science teacher and thought she would pursue a career in marine biology. At St. Bonaventure’s in western New York where she attended college, Ms. Smith said, with a laugh, that at one point when she described her background and ambitions, “The faculty member interviewing me, said ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here.’” 

She took a semester off and came back home to Shelter Island and took a course in landscape architecture, and then enrolled in West Virginia University, where she received a B.S. in Plant Science. 

Back home, she went to work at the now defunct nursery off St. Mary’s Road. Married and with children coming along, she was living in a house where a farmer had grown crops and had a farmstand where flowers were sold (and where Ms. Smith does to this day, along with eggs from her flock of chickens). One day, she her husband Bill Smith, took a long walk to talk about the future. “We asked each other what kind of business we could have that would allow us to stay on Shelter Island,” she remembered. The Island was without a florist; it seemed a natural fit.

CHALLENGES AND JOYS

It’s testament to Ms. Smith’s business sense and endurance that she has operated on the Island — over the years in eight different locations, she said — in a time and place that are unkind to small businesses.  

The Small Business Administration has collected data on the perilous course most small businesses take. According to the SBA, after five years, 51% of small businesses have failed; after 20 years the numbers get worse, with 67% gone. By the 15-year mark, only about 27% are still in business.

Challenges to the flower business are always ongoing, said the veteran of decades owning and operating her own shop. The latest challenge has been the tariff policy put in place by the Trump Administration. Ms. Smith cites countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, and several in South America, that have been mainstays of flower exporters to the U.S. that have been hit with severe tariffs. There’s also competition, with supermarkets selling flowers, including the IGA here, and lately the boom in farmers markets in the area. 

In addition, there are less formal funerals, Ms. Smith said, with more cremations these days. To keep up with the times, she has designed and sold wreaths for urns. Other mainstay are the Island’s churches, where she provides flowers for Christmas and Easter services.

But for all the challenges, there is the joy of bringing bright bouquets to individuals and families, and seeing faces light up entering her shop. She also relishes her role of working with people as a guide to plan an event and seeing customers’ dreams come true in the special occasions of their lives. “It’s wonderful to make their day,” Ms. Smith said.

She’ll miss, of course, being surrounded by flowers and plants six days a week, but also will miss human contacts in the business, going to pick up orchids every week in Riverhead, and contacts in Southold and Jamesport.

Retirement will not be long sessions on the couch. In addition to travel she will have much more time for one of her favorite pastimes, walking on Island and North Fork beaches. “The Sound is a great place for driftwood,” she said, planning to continue making art from found objects. And other outdoor excursions are in order.

“I’m going to take long walks in Mashomack,” Ms. Smith said. “It was my playground when I was a teenager. I’d take a lunch and wander in the woods. And that’s what I’ll do now.”