Known as “the flower girls” to folks around Little Compton, Hattie and Sarah Young have been working together for as long as they can remember, picking strawberries and arranging bouquets. Their parents, Tyler and Karla Young, have owned and operated Young Family Farm on West Main Road since 1997. Through swelteringly sunny days across acres of land, the sisters learned how to grow a business. Today, they own Young Designs Floral Studio, a flower-forward gift shop in Newport.
The siblings’ connection to farming is generational, dating back to 1866 when their great-great-grandfather, William Peckham, opened Peckham’s Greenhouses with his brother. Eventually, William’s son Bink Peckham, separated from the estate to start Ferolbink Farms – which happens to be Rhode Island’s leading potato producer and is presently owned by Pete Peckham, great uncle to the Young sisters. After working at Ferolbink Farms, the girls’ father, Tyler, purchased Young Family Farm with his wife, Karla, to continue the generations of farming.
“We grew up witnessing our parents start from scratch,” explains Sarah, recalling the early days of Young Family Farm, when their mother Karla placed an old wooden spool in front of their house with containers of strawberries to sell; eventually, it blossomed into a farmstand. While Karla would encourage her daughters to be more involved with the retail side of things, the girls were eager to be on-call as farmhands, often sprinting into action at 4am to help their father pack corn if a worker called out sick. However, it was helping Karla design arrangements for small gatherings that planted a seed.
Fast-forward to 2016, when the sisters decided to start a floral design business after Hattie graduated from university and Sarah was finishing her degree. At only 23 and 21 years old, they agreed to each invest $500 to acquire their business license and start from scratch like their parents had done. Working out of their Allston, MA apartment, the business began with orders for small events and restaurants before blooming through word of mouth. With their flowers mostly sourced from the family farm, the business continued
to grow from Allston, to their Westwood apartment, and finally to a studio in Norwood.
At the end of 2019, their Norwood storage location was impacted by a fire, forcing the sisters to return to Little Compton, where they pondered their next step. Eventually, they found a commercial property on Thames Street, and had just one month to flip the space before opening. Daunting but worthwhile, the new location put them closer than ever to their family farm, about 20 miles away.
“When we were younger, we said we would never be a part of the farm,” Sarah laughs. “But we’re finding ourselves working our way closer and closer back.” The sisters are currently building a floral studio on the Little Compton farm and plan to keep their Newport location as a gift shop. The industrious duo credit working on the farm as children with having a major impact on the businesswomen that they have become. “It trained us to work for what we wanted,” Hattie says. “Our parents always said to reach for the stars, and go after what you want.” Learn more at YDFlowers.com
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