Forest Hills Florist — Luxury Flower Delivery in South Durham

Forest Hills is Durham’s first automobile suburb, laid out in 1923 by landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper. Instead of the usual grid he gave it five miles of winding, tree-lined drives that follow the rolling creek-bottom topography of south Durham. Granite curbstones, concrete sidewalks, a forty-five-acre park at the heart of the neighborhood, and a 312-building National Register historic district of Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, and Spanish Eclectic homes set back on half-acre-plus lots. Eight minutes from downtown and the American Tobacco Campus. Ten from Duke. It has always been the neighborhood of established, quietly wealthy Durham — and it still is.

The houses and the residents

Thirteen of Forest Hills’s houses are signed by architect George Watts Carr. The grandest of them is Pinecrest — the 1928 Tudor Revival estate purchased in 1934 by Mary Duke Biddle and expanded for decades afterward. Thirteen acres, a gardener’s cottage, greenhouse, bathhouse, tennis court, pool, and formal gardens. It’s a reminder of the kind of home this neighborhood still holds. The residents skew established: 70.8% in executive, management, or professional work — a higher concentration than 95% of American neighborhoods — with deep ancestry in Durham and a median age north of fifty. These are old-money Durham families, senior partners, physicians, and business leaders who host in rooms designed for seated dinners and formal entertaining.

What a Forest Hills flower should look like

Tudor Revival dining rooms with half-timbered ceilings and leaded glass don’t want a florist-shop bouquet. Colonial Revival parlors with formal mantels want a mantel piece proportioned to the mantel. Spanish Eclectic interiors with wrought-iron and tilework carry color differently. My European training teaches restraint and structure — twenty stems with technique doing what a hundred stems never can. A low compote on a long dining table. A garden arrangement staged against a grand hallway mirror. A pair of matched urns flanking a formal entry. These are the pieces that hold up in Forest Hills houses.

What we design for in Forest Hills

Weddings and receptions at home or at the Clubhouse. The Forest Hills Clubhouse (the original 1930s golf clubhouse on University Drive, now part of Forest Hills Park) hosts intimate weddings, anniversaries, and family receptions for up to eighty guests. Many Forest Hills families host at home — a ceremony in the garden, a reception in the house — with the landscape as a built-in backdrop. We build bouquet through centerpiece at that scale.

Formal dinner parties. Forest Hills dining rooms were designed for eight-to-twelve-person seated dinners. We design low, architecturally shaped centerpieces that let the conversation cross the table, and sideboard and mantel pieces that hold the room without competing with the china.

Christmas and seasonal decor at a house scale. Decorating is a season-long project in Forest Hills — mantels, staircases, dining tables, entryways. We build fresh garlands, wreaths for formal doors, mantel pieces that match the architecture, and coordinated arrangements for extended-family gatherings. Nothing plastic. Nothing that looks like it came out of a box.

Milestone celebrations. Significant birthdays, retirements, anniversaries — Forest Hills residents have long careers and long marriages, and these occasions are marked with hosted dinners, garden parties, and private events. We design for the date, not the generic calendar.

Preservation Durham events and Art in Bloom. Forest Hills participates heavily in Preservation Durham home tours and in NCMA’s Art in Bloom program. When a Forest Hills home is being toured or photographed, the rooms call for work that matches both the architecture and the occasion.

Same-day delivery to Forest Hills

We deliver personally across Forest Hills — West Forest Hills Boulevard, East Forest Hills Drive, University Drive along the park, Kent Street, Maryland Avenue, and the winding interior streets that make the neighborhood what it is. Every arrangement is designed the morning of the delivery. Everything arrives at the door, never left at the curb. For Forest Hills Clubhouse events we coordinate with park staff on access and setup.

Order for Forest Hills

Browse our collection for same-day delivery. For seated dinners, hosted receptions, weddings, or standing weekly orders, reach out and we’ll design bespoke work for the room and the occasion.