meet karen + Jeff
We are both native North Carolinians. In late 2024, Winston-Salem became our new home, and we’re excited to become part of this great community.
Karen was born and raised in Charlotte. She has a background in nonprofit management and spent 30+ professional years raising funds to advance the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library’s mission and impact families in the community.
Jeff was born and raised in Boone and studied at Wake Forest University before attending architecture school at UNC-Charlotte. He’s spent a lifetime finding design solutions that give communities and families the spaces they need.
We met through the efforts of Karen’s favorite match-making Aunt and in January 2025 celebrated our 32rd wedding anniversary. We’re also the proud parents of a smart daughter doing her own part to make the world a better place through her work in D.C.
about belvedere blooms
Belvedere Blooms started in 2022 in our urban backyard on Belvedere Ave in Charlotte. It grew in part as a relaxing weekend hobby and our small way to improve habit for pollinators. Response from neighbors and walkers enjoying our pop-up sidewalk sales encouraged us to think beyond that small urban plot.
Finding the old Essex farmhouse, together with its adjacent now-overgrown garden area, seemed ideal for an expanded Belvedere Blooms vision. “Belvedere” means beautiful view and selling our former house on Belvedere made this new adventure possible, so we’ve kept the same name here in Winston-Salem.
While our business may be in its early years, we’re rooted in many generations of farmers and gardeners. Both our moms remain wise elders in our circle. Jeff’s mom helped us get started with growing dahlias and has been successfully growing beautiful dahlia blooms herself for more than 50 years. Karen’s mom is an excellent rooter and seed starter and has treasured plants thriving some 65 years later. She even often claims that her own mother could plant a toothpick and grow a tree.
the farm
When we discovered the old Essex farmhouse, we knew that we had stumbled on a special place. That family’s circa 1870’s log cabin had eventually become the kitchen of their 1910 farmhouse and the center of a 100+ acre working farm for many years. We’re so happy that the farmhouse (only marginally changed over the years) and its remaining 3.5 acres became available to us. Jeff has led the careful renovation of the farmhouse and the restoration of the adjacent fields for our cut flower growing. We hope the Essex family would approve of our plans to revitalize the farmland to keep providing green, growing (and blooming) things for the Winston-Salem area for years to come.
Belvedere Blooms 