If you garden, you know Pesche’s — Pesche’s Greenhouse, Floral Shop and Gift Barn has been a destination for Lake Geneva residents for over 50 years. But the Pesche family’s love for gardening goes back even further than that, stretching over several generations — three in Wisconsin and even more in the greater Chicago area, all the way to the country of Luxembourg. “It’s in our blood,” says fourth-generation co-owner Nick Pesche.
Nick Pesche’s father, Robert, grew up managing the flower and garden side of the business, the third generation of the family to take up greenhouse work. “Our family started a garden center in the greater Chicago area,” Nick explains, noting that it was his great-grandfather who opened that original location, which included a “gift shop, flower shop, liquor store, grocery, butcher … it was a little of everything.”
But as the story goes, there was tension over which family member would inherit the Chicago establishment. So instead of taking over the family business in Illinois, Nick says his grandfather, Fred Pesche, moved to the Lake Geneva area and opened Pesche’s Greenhouse with his brother in 1970. Fred Pesche then sold the business to Nick’s parents, Robert and Mary Pesche, in 1984.
In fact, the Pesche family’s connections to the greenhouse industry extend well beyond the original Chicagoland business. Originally hailing from the small European country of Luxembourg, the Pesche family was well-known there for its greenhouse expertise, and continued to dominate the field after immigrating to America. In fact, a 2010 issue of Lawn & Landscape Magazine chronicled a visit the Luxembourg royal family made to Wisconsin in 2009 to celebrate the opening of the Luxembourg American Cultural Center, proclaiming the Pesche family one of “the most prominent Luxembourg-American green- house families.”
When Nick’s grandfather founded Pesche’s Greenhouse in Lake Geneva in 1970, the business was limited strictly to greenhouse growing and focused primarily on selling to the wholesale market. When Nick’s father, Robert, purchased the business, he drew on his own experiences and his degree in horticulture from the University of Illinois to turn Pesche’s into a full-service garden center, and also added a floral shop.
The gift shop portion of Pesche’s was brought to life around the same time by Patty Kuper, a longtime employee (now retired), who loved plants and stopped by the greenhouse one day to ask Fred Pesche for a job. “He wasn’t really hiring, but he loved the fact that [my mom] sought him out,” says Amy Sanders, Kuper’s daughter and current sales manager at Pesche’s. “Nick’s grandparents love that story because they loved [her] initiative … and because it worked out so well.”
Today, while Nick handles much of the day-to-day operations, his dad, Robert, continues to stay engaged in the business. And one day, Nick hopes his children will follow in their footsteps and take the business into a fifth generation. “I hope it continues as a family business. I have two little boys, so they are [a long way from taking over], but I’ll make the 8-year-old start working soon, just like my parents made me work. He can set up a little juice stand,” Nick says with a chuckle.
“We’re a family business, and everyone here works hard and tries hard to make everyone happy,” Sanders explains. “It’s really a wonderful place to work.”
Read the full story at At The Lake Magazine.