A YOUNG COUPLE’S FLOWER STAND GREW INTO A CITY BLOCK OF SHOPS AND SERVICES FOR THE LONG BEACH ISLAND LIFESTYLE. TODAY, THREE GENERATIONS OF REYNOLDS TEND THE LEGACY

BY KT HARRISON PHOTOS BY ALEX BARRETO

Peg Reynolds’ two toddler daughters were already acting up as she loaded two flats of wholesale flowers into her 1978 Honda station wagon, the first of two such trips. “Only half our daily order for our Manahawkin flower stand fit into the wagon,” she recalled.

Flash forward almost four decades, and the family owns 40 trucks. The flower stand (“a table my husband Mark built from fallen trees,” Reynolds said) has grown into a retail complex of seven focused lifestyle stores plus home design and construction services. Filling a long block of downtown Manahawkin, this shopping Shangri-la is known as The Shops at Reynolds. Peg and Mark are often referred to as Reynolds’ matriarch and patriarch.

There’s a meant-to-be air about them. Sweethearts at Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin and co-workers at Mark’s family-owned restaurant Carroll’s, they tied the knot in 1980. Peg became a certified medical assistant and Mark worked as a blackjack and roulette dealer at Caesars in Atlantic City. (“Mark didn’t like the smoke,” said Reynolds. “And I wanted to balance my intense CMA work with something less hectic.”) The couple, who “loved the outdoors and everything green,” decided to open a roadside flower stand perched at the edge of her parents’ driving range. Peg ran the stand, which flourished as she supplemented the blossoms with green plants and decorative items made by local artisans. Mark, who’d traded his croupier’s black shoes for construction boots, “did landscaping work, cleaned up gardens, and chopped wood,” he said. “Whatever people needed.”

As their family expanded adding Katie in 1983, Ashley in 1985, and Luke in 1988 it was time to expand the business. Months before Luke was born, Peg and Mark bought a house on Manahawkin’s Main Street that they transformed into Reynolds Garden Shop, offering home goods, too. They continued to acquire other properties on the block, including a Revolutionary-era residence. Their most recent purchase (“I’m hesitant to say ‘the last,’” laughed Reynolds) clinched the handsome bank building at the end of the block. The seven buildings, interconnected by stone paths and a walk-through greenhouse, now comprise The Shops at Reynolds. Each has its own style and specialty, offering customers “beautiful, never cookie-cutter things to display, or wear, or relax on, or set your table with.”

The Reynolds kids grew up in The Shops. “They’d come straight from school,” said Reynolds. “We fixed up a back room where they did homework, read, or played indoors and out with the dog.”

Katie and Luke now run key segments of the Reynolds business. Katie, who earned a management degree and became Katie Reynolds Hood, oversees numerous retail departments, including flowers and event orders, women’s fashion, furniture, and an on-site café. Her husband, Tanek, is The Shops’ lighting and audio designer. Peg and Mark’s middle child, Ashley, is a teacher who spends school vacations and the summer where else but The Shops? Luke reported for service right after college. His wife, also named Ashley, part-timed at Reynolds as a teen and now directs the children’s boutique. Luke joined his father’s garden and land scaping division. The son proved such “an instinctive, fast-learning designer and builder,” said Mark Reynolds, “that in mid-career, I was able to hand him the reins and pursue a new specialty: construction.” Mark is presently a sought-after home designer and builder.

Luke focuses on outdoor installations as intricate as interiors. “Here on Long Beach Island, many of my clients’ houses are mansions,” he noted. One recent project called for “a nine-foot spouting dolphin fountain plus a marble driveway and porte-cochere.”

Luke’s design assistant is Katie’s elder child, 16-year-old Cullen, a wiz at digital architectural design. Cullen fronts the next generation of Reynolds youngsters who “have taken to the shops like ducklings to water,” said Reynolds. “My grandkids all want to be a part of the business, and they’re here so much, they already are.”

This growth wasn’t the result of any master plan, explained Mark. “Our business evolved naturally, responding to the wants and needs of our customers,” he said. “We’re locals, too. Our aim is to make what you see, buy, or commission in The Shops as meaningful to our clientele as to us.”

Every family member agreed: the enduring magic of the Reynolds enterprise is its extraordinary service. Mark and Peg learned the primacy of service as teenagers working at Carroll’s, Mark’s family restaurant. As she explained, “The unwavering truth of any hospitality or retail business is this: what customers value and remember most is the service.”

Mark added, “People feel embraced here. We do anything, everything for them, all the time. We have a great relationship with our clients, whether building a home or visiting with them as they stroll through the garden center.”

Respect begins at home, and the Reynolds’ reverence of service springs from their regard for each other. The entire family shares a deep-rooted, unshakable bond and treasures taking vacations together.

The family’s employees “are our extended family,” said Luke, “from our on-staff architects, builders, designers, decorators, and florists to our seasonal workers from Mexico.” Spanish-speaking Luke collaborates with a steady crew of gardeners and landscapers from Veracruz, who come up every year from April through November on an H2B work visa and live on-property. “They call me ‘Patroncito,’ or ‘Little Boss,’” he said. “They’re incredible artisans and workers and close to our hearts.”

Giving back is a Reynolds family value. The Reynolds Family Foundation funds a multitude of local initiatives such as food banks, and it quietly assists locals with expenses like medical bills and other critical personal needs.

“Our business is a legacy, not just to our family but to our community,” said Mark Reynolds. “Our mission is to keep enhancing local life.” His wife and partner agreed, adding, “Manahawkin came out to support our flower stand 40 years ago. Now we return the favor.”

The Shops at Reynolds

201 E. Bay Avenue, Manahawkin / 609.597.6099 / reynoldslbi.com