Garden-Lou Spotlight on Charlee Storner

Enchanting. Beautiful. Magic … three words to describe the holidays in St. Louis and why it’s become a Christmas Destination. Behind all the golden glitter and twinkling lights is a powerful combination of creativity, imagination, and some very, very long hours.

Charlee Storner is the Holiday Specialist at Ambius, the company known for Commercial interior plantscaping, scenting, and holiday décor in the U.S. and Europe. To me, Charlee is the woman that taught me pretty much everything I know about holiday design. I’ve had the personal pleasure of working side by side with Charlee for 25 years now, and every single year she surprises and outdoes the year before. You couldn’t ask for a better teacher, so it’s my pleasure to feature the talented lady who gives St. Louis its glittery glow for the holidays and share some of her designs over the years.

“My job is to identify potential commercial holiday opportunities, design the project, create presentations and quotes, close sales, procure products, produce creations, install and run a crew of designers. I have been with the company nearly 30 years,” says Charlee.

She makes the job sound very corporate, but unlike other holiday salespersons and designers, Charlee gets her hands dirty, pulling crazy hours in the holiday trenches with the other crew members, including St. Louis Branch Manager Marvin Storner, her husband.

So, how does one become a Holiday Specialist? “When I went back to school after my children started school, I gave up the long hours as a floral designer for a part-time job as a plant service specialist. I fell in love with the industry, and when I was asked to take on the holiday portion of the business, I found my special calling.”

Like many designers, Charlee has an art background and holds an associate degree in fine art, creating paintings primarily for friends and family in the off-season. Every aspect of her life is saturated in design… from her professional holiday work to her personal artwork, even her home interior. It doesn’t stop there. She’s created fun, theme-inspired rooms for her grandchildren and other family members, complete with individualized Christmas trees (of course!)

“Growing up, I wanted to be an artist or a horse whisperer,” says Charlee. “My grandmother would have me find things in the yard and create a centerpiece for our dinner table. I don’t recall at what age it began; I just remember always doing it. The ah-ha moment was when I realized there was an outlet for my love of plants and an outlet for my creativity through interior landscaping design.”

The long hours spent creating the holiday décor well before installation time are second only to the hours spent installing everything. The Train Shed Restaurant, for example, took a crew of 6-8 people a week to install, arriving at 5am every morning before the restaurant opened for lunch. But according to Charlee, “I don’t think of my job as hard. I do occasionally have a client that has unrealistic expectations. I strive to give everyone a customized slice of good cheer, and when someone cannot be pleased, that weighs heavily on me.”

Charlee has won numerous industry awards for her holiday designs,
including the prestigious International Plantscape Diamond Award.

You hear some interesting requests in the floral industry. “One of my designers showed up at a job sight with a truck full of decorations, and the contact asked her if she brought it in her car. Recently I was asked if I could decorate only one side of a 20′ tree so that a bride would not see the red, and then we could spin it around after the wedding.” (The answer was no, 20′ trees don’t spin around like that!)

The best part of the job outweighs the long hours and hard work. “It’s a tie between the feeling I get of a well-done job and the lifelong friendships I have developed with my fellow decorators. They have laughed with me, cried with me, put up with an artist’s temperament, and I could not do it without them. They go into battle with me year after year, and I love them for that.”

And the feeling is mutual!

Rebecca LaBeaume, Charlee Storner, Linda Godsey, and Jo Batzer

Charlee Storner, Linda Godsey, Abby Hager, David Zettler, and Jo Batzer at The Train Shed, Union Station

Quick facts;

–Favorite design tool- My imagination.

–Do you have any plant passions? I love succulents and orchids for indoors and conifers and mixed bowls for exterior. There are no bad plants/flowers, just bad design.

-Favorite holiday displays you’ve visited in person, near or far? Once I was in New York at Christmas, and it was amazing. Made my mouth water.

– Where do you look for inspiration? I look for inspiration any and everywhere.

-You do large-scale commercial holiday decorating all over the region, but what about your own personal holiday décor at home? For my personal holiday decorating style, I am pretty much a purest. I use a lot of greenery and warm white lights, although I sometimes use them in unconventional ways. An example is my tree which is an upside-down wall-mounted tree decorated with glass “dill pickle” ornaments. The tree spreads over the wood ceiling, and the ornaments hang down, and we actually sit under it to open gifts. Also, because I have grandchildren, I add whimsy, such as a gingerbread village and a candy tree, which is an all-time favorite.