Themed Entertainment Designer
Trade City Botanical is a conceptual project I designed and completed individually, taking a storefront on Broughton Street, a center of retail in Savannah, and repurposing/retheming it.
I was inspired by the growing trend of boutique experiences, and so my initial thought was to create an urban, boutique botanical garden.
I chose 18 E. Broughton Street. The first task was to render the facade of the store in Autocad, and then redesign it to suit your new purpose.
A story began to evolve around the design, the pulled all the components together. The story of Trade City Botanical became one of its main components, a story of world travel and undying love:
It’s the Golden Age in Savannah, Georgia and the heady sense of jazz and adventure is as strong as our gin and vodka. Industry is booming and trade is thrumming through the ports like blood in the city’s veins, bringing with it stories and spices and the smell of a wind from a long way off.
Rosalie H. Beaumont blew in off the Savannah ports, just the same. She and her husband Theodore. They were the world traveller types. Mrs. Beaumont, having been raised in Savannah herself, was always too much for whatever room was holding her. When she said she wanted the world, she would have it.
That was what happened, so they say, when Theodore and Rosalie got married. He was a sailor and she, a lady and a spitfire. And so they set out from their native Savannah to sail in every direction and when they finally returned, it was said they’d seen the whole world. It was trade that brought them back, in with the crates of goods and treasure from every continent. And Rosalie hiked up her skirts and marched up the docks, back up to Broughton Street, a place she had once known very well, and looked up at a spot of sky above an empty plot. “Here,” she said firmly. “Here is where I’m going to put it.” “Put what?” Theodore asked. She smiled roguishly at him. “The world.” It should be noted here that Theodore loved Rosalie more than life itself.
And so together, back at last in Savannah, they set to work building the finest house of world treasures in the whole south: a conservatory. An anchorage of plants and flowers and life from around the world, brought in by the thriving Savannah trade. Theodore, on his travels, had developed a knowledge of plants and befriended every botanist around the world. And so now, as the sailors return home, like the Beaumonts, they bring with them little saplings and buds and these now finally have a home too.
Rosalie, too, had collected memories. She’d had friends and good times and parties and she was ready to bring it back for everyone else. Rosalie would meet them down at the docks as the ships pulled in, the sailors and traders and travelers. She greeted old friends, laughing and telling stories, sipping tea or whiskey, and telling them of her gardens. And soon everyone knew. She’d stroll up and down Broughton Street and they’d ask her if she missed travelling. And she’d say no, she was home. Savannah was her home and she’d brought it all back in the Trade City Botanical.
The day the last pane of glass went up on the roof of their conservatory, there were people there from around town and they all cheered and Theodore pulled Rosalie close and the doors opened wide. Inside, the Savannahns wandered through the peaceful, shady gardens of China, beneath cherry blossoms and around cool ponds. They found the rich, manicured floral masterpieces of Europe where Rosalie served them all drinks and up on the highest floor, the wild, untamed rainforest shot towards the sun in a burst of color.
It was all there. It was a celebration of trade and prosperity and of all the good times. And the more people that have adventures, the more native souls that venture back home, the more the gardens grow. So swing on by the Trade City Botanical, where the Golden Age never ends. Industry is flourishing and it’s something to celebrate. Rosalie floats amongst her guests, serving drinks and good stories, keeping the party going well into the night. Together, the Beaumonts bring Savannah out into the world and a little bit of the world back into Savannah.