Samuel’s Florist was started in 1937 by Samuel Morhaime near the corner of Alameda and Victory. At that time it was a “bucket shop” where customers stopped by to pick up fresh flowers and popular corsages. The business quickly grew and soon Samuel added delivery service and began providing flowers for all occasions including large parties, weddings and funerals. As his business grew so did his family and his children began to work in the shop while they went to school.

In the early 1950’s, Samuel moved his business into the present building on Olive. Designed by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the stark lines of the building were more easily seen before the addition of the second floor and the climbing plants in front. During the 60’s and 70’s, more and more responsibility was taken over by Samuel’s two sons, Victor and Bill. Both were active in local service organizations and continued their father’s tradition of not only serving clients but making friends and helping improve the community.

In the late 1980’s, Donna Smith started working at the shop and learning the floral business from Bill and Victor. When Bill began to have health issues, she took over many of his responsibilities which included going to the Los Angeles Flower Market and selecting the fresh flowers for the shop. Karla Comayagua joined the team at Samuel’s in the early 90’s while in high school and began learning to design. When Bill passed away, Victor began to think of retiring and Donna took over the daily running of the shop.

In 1999, Donna officially took over the shop and at the same time, Samuel’s acquired Bud’s Flowers. While the shop changed owners, we worked very hard to uphold the high standards of quality, service and community set by Samuel over 70 years earlier and we also had to satisfy Bud's long time customers. To satisfying the changing needs of our customers, we completely computerized our database and installed an order entry/point of sale computer system and went on line with our first website.

In 2002, Tributes at Mount Sinai was opened. Because Sunday is one of the busiest days at Mt. Sinai, it became necessary for the shop to be open 7 days a week. We also began expanding our services to include grave placement of flowers at other cemeteries in the area.

Today we have a fully modernized shop with delivery people that carry cell phones and a large percentage of our orders originating from our website. We still offer in-house accounts and place customer service as our highest priority. Looking forward to answer the future needs of our customers while holding on to the traditions of the past, overcoming the difficulties of small businesses and changes in the floral industry, being active in the community and trying to become more environmentally responsible is often challenge. Many of our best customers first used Samuel's many years ago and we still have the occasional customer tell us that Sam used to give them a flower for their mom or that he used to walk them across the street when they were coming home from school. We value the history of our shop and still keep a vase of cut hyacinth on the counter during the spring - just like Samuel used to do.