The Tustenegee 14 How Has Pioneer Linens Lasted 100 Years? ‘It Feels Like Home
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The Tustenegee 14 How has Pioneer Linens lasted 100 years? ‘It feels like home by Jan Tuckwood, Palm Beach Post Writer Re-printed with permission by The Palm Beach Post When Toby Keller’s daughter, Chelsea, got engaged, Keller knew what they must do: Go to Pioneer Linens so the bride-to-be could learn how a proper lady handles proper linens. There was just one woman who could teach her: Penny Murphy, president of Pioneer and Keller’s longtime friend. Drawing of the original Pioneer Linens storefront. Courtesy Penny Murphy. 15 April 2012 Linens are Murphy’s lineage, after all. From hardware store can run a profitable business.” She is the granddaughter of the man to luxury linens boutique Daughter Penny had no intention of who founded Pioneer 100 years ago Pioneer opened in 1912, the same running the store at all. She earned and the daughter of the dapper George year the Titanic sank, taking so many a master’s degree in early childhood Greenberg, the “Mayor of Clematis Victorian traditions of civility down with education and ran a school for several Street,” who ran Pioneer for 60 years it. years in Wellington. When her three and turned it into a destination. For Lake Worth was barely settled, let children - Alan, 31, Marissa, 29, and young ladies like Chelsea, this is a rite of alone civil, when Max Greenberg Camille, 26 - were born, she became “the passage: You get the diamond ring, then opened his “Pioneer Hardware” store ultimate room mother,” volunteering and you get the Pioneer lesson. there. Settlers needed chicken wire and running fundraisers. How to fold a napkin. How to set a mosquito nets more than handkerchiefs One fundraiser raised so much money, table. How to tell the difference between and sheets. They also needed kerosene her father couldn’t help but take notice. 600-thread-count sheets you can buy at lamps, since Lake Worth didn’t have “You need to come over here and help Home Goods for $100 and Italian-made electricity yet. me introduce Pioneer to (interior) 1,020-thread-count sheets you can buy When more houses sprang up, Max designers,” he told her. at Pioneer for 20 times that price. added furniture, and by 1924, Pioneer It was the ‘90s, the era of McMansions If you touch these Italian sheets, you Hardware and Furniture was the biggest - with lots of bedrooms and bathrooms know: They are well beyond anything at retailer around. But the 1928 hurricane and aspirational owners who wanted Bed, Bath & Beyond. destroyed the store - prompting Max to impress with crystal soap dishes and If you grew up in Palm Beach County, as to move to 210 Clematis St. in West gold-dusted toilet brushes. Toby Keller did, you know: Pioneer is not Palm Beach - and the Depression forced When “the Mayor of Clematis Street” just a store. It is a purveyor of a genteel a change in merchandise. Expensive died in 2007 at 92, Penny took the way of life, a life that four generations of furniture was out. Sheets and tablecloths reins at Pioneer. She made a crucial Murphy’s family have nurtured in four were in. business move - she started the www. generations of customers. After World War II, when soldiers pioneerlinens.com website, which now As a child, Keller dried off with moved to Palm Beach County in droves, accounts for 25 percent of sales - and monogrammed towels from Pioneer. As Pioneer helped welcome the boys also added a dose of woman’s intuition. a bride, she opened her gift registry at home and also kept their young wives “Think of your little white tablecloth Pioneer. As a mom, she hauled Chelsea entertained with stunts like bed-making like you think of your little black dress,” and her bridesmaids to Pioneer for the contests. (One advertisement from she tells women. “Change the accessories ultimate “ABC’s of linens.” the ‘50s explains how “a team of two and get a whole new look.” They discovered Italian sheets and married women” would be “judged on French shams and napkins hand- speed and neatness.”) Lessons from ‘Papa’ George embroidered in Madeira, Portugal, and By then, Max’s son, George, was in Penny’s children all work at Pioneer. lovely $30 linen handkerchiefs, like the charge, and he narrowed the store’s Marissa is the Internet manager and heads kind your grandmother carried in her focus, turning Pioneer into a boutique new business development. Camille purse. linens retailer - a destination store for directs marketing and advertising. Alan, They learned the difference between a discerning customers from around the the vice president, is the heir apparent bolster and a boudoir pillow, between world. and the chip off the George Greenberg percale and sateen. Other stores left downtown for the block. They learned that quality costs - and mall, but George stayed put - buying a Ask Alan Murphy for a couple of quality lasts. The towels Keller got for lot across the street where his customers Papa George-isms, and he does not her own wedding held out for 37 years! could park, launching a mail-order hesitate: “‘Cheaters never prosper!’” “Pioneer sets the stage for what is business and serving his customers’ His grandfather - who worked six days fine and excellent,” Keller says, “in needs with custom bedding and enough a week all his life and always had a product and in service.” That is why it stock on hand for surprise seasonal trip planned, often to Paris, “to have has survived for a century - through two guests. something to look forward to” - taught World Wars, a Depression, booms and Round bed? No problem, Pioneer’s Alan the meaning of work and money. busts and downtown flight. got a sheet for that. Fifty friends flying Alan got his first retail job at age 10, Pioneer Linens has changed with the in tomorrow for a beach party? No stocking shoes at Sunrise Bootery in times - and also not changed with them problem, Pioneer’s got plenty of cabana- Palm Beach, and by 14, he worked at in one crucial way. striped towels to deliver in time. Palm Beach Bicycle Trail Shop, learning As Penny Murphy says: “There will “Anybody can run a business,” George how to cater to a seasonal crowd. always be people who want civility.” would tell his children, “but not anybody At Palm Beach Atlantic College, he The Tustenegee 16 Pioneers Linens on Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, 1960s-1970s. Courtesy Penny Murphy. started his own business - a college hands. into the fabric of Palm Beach County discount guide, where students could use “One hundred percent year-over-year memory, as sure as sateen yarns are their IDs to get deals at 150 local stores. growth in the yacht division,” Alan says. twisted to give sheets a slight sheen. It was clear Alan had that family knack “My grandfather was astonished that the Customers come in all the time, Penny of discovering niche markets. opportunity was out there.” Murphy says, and get a little misty-eyed. When he graduated from college, his He was not astonished at all that the “My grandmother brought me here,” grandfather put him through the paces kid who mined that opportunity was the they say. Customers like Toby Keller and - making him work in every area of the boy who grew up watching him. Ellen Wight, who grew in Lake Worth, store, from shipping to the sales floor, keep coming back. Wight recently bought for one year. ‘My grandmother brought me here’ a bed skirt there because she wanted a “Then, my grandfather and mother Greenberg instilled in his family the tailored style, and she knew Pioneer pulled me into the office and said: ‘All values that Pioneer stands for, Alan says. would have it. She is not a wealthy right, kid, now what are you going The key thing: “Integrity. If there’s a Palm Beacher - she’s just a woman who to do?’ “ Alan recalls. Alan’s move: problem, we’ll fix it. If others say it can’t grew up loving beautiful things, like the Launching a yacht-linens division. be done, we’ll do it.” monogrammed baby blankets she buys Today, five years later, Pioneer is one Pioneer gets its linen vendors to do for friends who welcome newborns. At of the largest providers of linens for the amazing things, Alan says, because in Pioneer, she finds civility. And one more yachting interiors market. many cases, Pioneer was among the first lovely, intangible thing: “It feels like George Greenberg lived long enough clients the vendors had. Longevity has home.” to see his family business was in solid its rewards. Pioneer Linens is woven 17 April 2012 Pioneers Linens, 2011. Courtesy Penny Murphy. Pioneer over the years: gets 25 percent of its business from the sheets? The Murphys don’t drop names. From chicken wire to luxury linens Internet - but many customers are local But they are having their centennial 1912 and loyal. With high-end linens like the party, the Legacy of Linens Luncheon, at Max Greenberg stocked Pioneer with Madeira napkin/placemat set, ‘Pioneer Trump’s home, Mar-a-Lago, on Tuesday everything an early tent-dwelling settler sets the stage for what is fine and [February 7, 2012]. could want – hardware, mosquito nets excellent,’ one lifelong shopper says. It’s not just the thread count that and kerosene lamps – when he opened These people know sheets! So, what matters. Thread count is simply the his store in downtown Lake Worth. do THEY sleep on? Penny Murphy and number of threads per square inch of (Max also helped establish Palm Beach son Alan choose 1,020-thread-count, fabric, but other factors, such as fiber County’s first synagogue, Temple Beth Italian-woven, Egyptian cotton sateen quality and finishing, are as important Israel, in 1923.) Sferra Amante sheets, which sell for to quality.