Parkview Gardens

History

Parkview Gardens can trace its beginnings to 1880, when Jacob Rau emigrated from Germany and settled in St. Charles. Jacob bought a farm on present-day Fairlane Drive and began growing grapes and working at local wineries. The Rau family later moved to a second farm at Fourth and Chauncey streets, where they grew vegetables and grapes that the nine Rau boys would peddle door to door. In July 1895, Jacob Rau bought a six-acre farm on Randolph Street, where they expanded their vegetable and grape growing to include fruit trees, berries, and flowers.

Of the 11 Rau children, it was Benjamin who followed in his father’s footsteps, taking over the farm when Jacob died in 1915. His great love was in flowers and, in 1929, with the encouragement of friends and customers, he and his wife, Clara, decided to specialize in flowers and opened a retail florist shop they called Parkview Gardens.

One of their earliest employees was Herbert W. Wolter, the father of Dorothy Gillette. Herbert helped Benjamin operate a small nursery on the grounds and tend large outdoor beds of gladiolas and asters and greenhouses filled with mums and snapdragons. Customers each spring would buy their vegetable plants, perennials, and pansies from Parkview, taking them home wrapped in wet newspapers.

Dorothy began working at Parkview Gardens in 1944. The retail florist shop, as a member of the FTD wire service, was kept busy during the World War II years filling orders from GIs for flowers for their mothers in St. Charles or their sweethearts at Lindenwood College. The Raus had bought an existing flower shop on Main Street and Dorothy was its sole employee and manager until it closed in the 1950s. In 1954, Dorothy married Leland Gillette, one of those GIs.

In 1958, Benjamin and Clara Rau retired and sold their business to a partnership of Joe and Laverne Primeau and Dorothy and Leland Gillette. Joe had previously worked at Parkview Gardens. The Primeaus sold their interest to the Gillettes in 1961. The Gillettes’ son, Tom, joined the business following his graduation from the University of Missouri in 1979. His interest in the “growing end” prompted the construction of several greenhouses and the remodeling of the present facilities. In 1986, Tom married Holly Jost, whose family operated a greenhouse business in St. Louis County.

Tom and Holly bought the business from his parents in 1993, but even in retirement, Leland and Dorothy continued to be involved, offering advice and counsel and helping out during the busy spring and holiday seasons. Dorothy died in February 2010. Leland continued to visit the greenhouses daily even as he approached his 90th birthday in 2010. He died in July 2011. They are missed daily and Tom and Holly continue to refer back to their words of wisdom and encouragement.

Today, Parkview Gardens has progressed from a few cut flowers and vegetables grown outdoors to 11 greenhouses growing a variety of plants throughout the seasons with bedding plants, pansies, perennials, and hanging baskets in the spring, mums and pansies in the fall, and thousands of poinsettias for Christmas. In 2010, Tom and Holly planted grape vines on the hillside facing Randolph Street, just as Jacob Rau had done more than 120 years before. Each and every season, they look for new plants and creative ways to keep the love of flowers and the art of gardening thriving and growing in the St. Charles Community.

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