Waynesburg couple seeking perfect arrangement at their shop
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
The Beehive Basement inside Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s is where customers can buy antiques to keep as is or have the in-house design team create a custom piece that would go well in a buyer’s home.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
The main store area inside Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Handmade crafts and wares from across the country are on display inside Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s in Waynesburg.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
Designers Janet Baxendell, Dori Daniels and Gwen Wendell are on hand to create custom pieces of art at Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s.
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
The sympathy area inside Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s in Waynesburg
Holly Tonini/Observer-Reporter
In this file photo from 2018, Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s is shown on East High Street in Waynesburg.
Kent and Pam Marisa are newlyweds, united in marriage for three weeks. They also have been partners in another endeavor the past couple of years, one whose name – in light of their recent vows – is etched in irony.
Perfect Arrangement.
They are co-owners of The Perfect Arrangement and Lily Bee’s, a floral/gift shop on East High Street in Waynesburg. It is a stylish store that has undergone a recent renovation, a location they pledge to continually update and upgrade.
“We want to create a shop that people from 50 miles away want to see,” Kent said. “We rearrange things a lot to make customers feel like it’s a new treasure hunt every time they come in.”
The Perfect Arrangement is a marvelous mix of floral displays, gift baskets, paintings of wildlife, silks, vases, purses, men’s and women’s toiletries and other selections. Designers there also create art out of old throwaways such as a 75-year-old cider press, a screen door and a wooden wagon wheel.
“We’re not really an antiques store, but we have antiques” said Kent, son of Rudy Marisa, the retired men’s basketball coach at Waynesburg University.
The owners, who reside in Waynesburg, do not work in their shop; three part-time and two full-time employees do. The Marisas’ store offers daily delivery of merchandise “to all of Greene County and beyond.”
Pam and Kent said they love to travel and scour gift shops for ideas and items to bring home. Seattle, Connecticut, Maine, Iowa and Montana are among their favorite destinations.
“We love to hunt for treasure, and we hunt everywhere,” Kent said.
They have about 10,000 square feet with which to operate their shop, and by renovating, the couple said they have created more showroom space for merchandise. Their store has distinctive sections, including a room known as “The Sympathy Area,” where bereaved family members and friends may view items, and a “Design Area,” where customers may watch designers at work.
“One of our dreams,” Pam said, “is to take the bottom-floor apartment and turn it into a mother-daughter tea room.”
She and her spouse also have a nickname for the dreary storage area of the basement: “The Dungeon.” Two apartments sit on the floor above the shop.
This building at 694 E. High St. has an interesting history. A judge built it decades ago for his home, and included space in the basement for a weekend holding cell.
An addition was put up at the front to accommodate a store, which operated as Neubauer’s Flowers for the better part of a half-century. It was sold in the early 2000s, a few years before Pam – then known as Pam Blaker – became the owner in 2005.
She and Kent grew up in Waynesburg about a quarter-mile apart, but did not know one another until he returned to Greene County from New York City four years ago. He was an investment banker on Wall Street for about 15 years, during which he survived a most unsettling experience – 9/11. Kent was in the World Trade Center when the jets hit.
In an incredible coincidence – and an equally fortuitous circumstance – his brother, Kurt, was in the Pentagon that day when another plane hit. Kurt likewise walked away.
This is a family business, to be sure, but extends beyond the owners. Lili Bee is Lili Lexer, age 10, of Malvern in eastern Pennsylvania. She is a niece of Kent and Pam, and is a talented singer who has performed before large audiences. Her mother, Autumn, is a sibling of Kent and Kurt.
The shop is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The former investment banker said he and his spouse have invested a lot of time, energy and finances in their shop, and may not be in the black in the near future. Yet, he added, they are committed to having a business that Greene County can be proud of.
“We’ve put a lot of money into this, and it may take awhile before we realize profits,” Kent said. “But we want people to like our products and get a lot of joy from them.
“We try to find things that are not at a Walmart. People know they can come here and experience something new every day. We never have anyone come in and say they’re disappointed.”
That, for buyers and sellers, is a perfect arrangement.