BY Aline Reynolds
Last Sunday, tree vendor Scott Lechner was taking two or three delivery calls at a time in his cluttered, smoke-filled R.V. parked on Sixth Avenue next to SoHo Square.
It was opening week of his company, SoHo Trees, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from now through Christmas Day.
SoHo Trees began as your everyday neighborhood tree vendor in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
“It was 1982,” Lechner said. “We were just a few young Brooklyn boys from the streets.”
He had no idea then that the small-scale business venture would turn into a competitive citywide operation. Today, SoHo Trees operates 12 locations around Manhattan, including 20th Street and Second Avenue, and Hudson and Clarkson Streets. The company delivers the trees to the customers’ homes, installs and even decorates the trees, which range from $39 to $2,000.
Like most vendors around the nation, SoHo Trees has struggled in recent years as fuel, shipping, labor and rent prices have escalated and profits have steadily dwindled.
“We’ve been treading water [in recent years],” said Lechner, who wouldn’t reveal the company’s financial status.
But the company has managed to stay alive, running on the sales pitch of providing great-quality trees for reasonable prices. “To offer these services is expensive. [The customers] have a right to be demanding,” Lechner said as he flicked the ash from his cigarette onto the floor of the R.V.
He conducts business there on an average of 21 hours a day, calling the job a “cult-like dedication.” His co-workers refer to him as “Willie the Hat: Pontiff of SoHo.”
Parents with children and young couples strolled by the SoHo location last Sunday, several of them stopping by with the intent to buy.
“I’m not spending $200 on a Christmas tree,” said Wall Street resident James Fegarty, who is accustomed to paying $150 maximum in London, his hometown. SoHo Trees supervisor Daniel Kirby explained that these are premium plants that last five or six weeks, rather than the typical two or three.
“This one was cut three days ago,” Lechner said, pointing to one in a large stack of wrapped-up trees.
Fegarty, who bargains for a living in the insurance business, managed to bargain down the price to $175 for a tree and a mixed-foliage, Fraser Fir wreath.
“I’m basically giving you the wreath for free,” Kirby said, hoping that the short-term financial loss in the sale would turn Fegarty into a full-time customer.
The wreaths, like the trees, are mostly hand-sheered with machete knives at approximately 15 different tree farms around the country. They are cut to order and delivered to the sites by 18-wheeler trucks on a need-by-need basis. “We demand that our trees be as market-fresh as possible,” Lechner said. “And that’s no bull.”
Other passers-by were regulars that come back every year, willing to invest in an annual relic in the name of tradition. SoHo resident Carl Finegan put down $265 for an eight-foot tree, delivery service and a bottle of preservatives. “We’re going away for Christmas,” he said. “It’ll be good to have it when we get back.”
“It feels like a community place,” said Tribeca resident Rebecca Hunch, whose annual tree shopping at the company’s SoHo location has turned into a yearly routine with her husband and two young children. “It’s fun that the kids remember this is where we get our tree.”
When asked whether the family would let SoHo Trees decorate their tree for them, she replied, chuckling, “Oh Gosh, no.” Unlike meals, when the family often resorts to takeout, she said, decorating the tree is one activity the family carves out time for.
“[Decorating] is part of the experience of it all,” said Kelly Connelly and her college roommates, who strolled by SoHo Trees wearing Santa Claus hats, pushing a shopping cart and boasting above-average bargaining skills. The college girls got their $115 tree reduced to $90.
SoHo Trees’ decorators bring in a small chunk of the profits for the company. Lechner hires young freelance artists like Alice Grant and Billy Gonzalez to dress the trees with lights and ornaments, an additional $50-to-$100 service.
“We’ll talk to the customer, and they’ll give us a few key words,” Grant explained, such as a color theme or lighting pattern. They also help out with some housekeeping tasks in the R.V., such as creating colorful labels for the ornaments on sale in a tent at the SoHo branch. The month-long job, she and Gonzalez said, is a good source of steady income.
Other members of the “cult-like” team, like Kirby, work 18-hour shifts. SoHo Trees is like a brotherhood, Kirby said, and an escape from a quiet life in Wasilla, Alaska.
“I feel like part of the family – [Lechner] is kind of like an older brother figure,” Kirby said.
Scott Gartland, nicknamed “little Scott,” has been doing it since he was 14 years old. He’s grown accustomed to not seeing his wife and children back home in upstate New York for a whole month, including Christmas Day. “This is what Christmas is to me,” he said. “It’s indoctrinated [in me] since I was a young age.”
He added it hurts a little more every year not to open Christmas gifts with his family.
Yet Gartland, like Kirby, returns every year.
“It’s a labor of love for us,” Lechner chimed in, between sales calls. “The money’s okay, the vibe is great.”
