By: Jay M. Grossman
Birmingham Eccentric Reporter
jgrossman@hometownlife.com
586-826-7030 Twitter: @BhmEccentric
If you’re going to work in a garden all day, you may as well dress up like a gnome occasionally.
Tim Travis, owner of Goldner Walsh Garden & Home in Pontiac, is being recognized Tuesday as the 2016 Business Person of the Year at the Birmingham Bloomfield Chamber’s annual meeting at the Birmingham Country Club. Tickets for the breakfast are still available by visiting the chamber website (www.bbcc.com), or by calling 248-644-1700.
Goldner Walsh has been around in southeast Michigan since 1953. The nursery has a national reputation for providing top-notch planting material and award-winning landscape design. Travis himself is a community cheerleader, an accomplished pianist, and he has a twin brother.
If that wasn’t enough, he keeps goats and chickens on his 12 acres of property off Orchard Lake Road. And then, there’s the gnomes:
Q: Tell us about your gnome collection … how did that get started?
Travis: I was in the process of moving out of my old house in Clarkston and did an eBay stint on selling some things, and I ran across this collection of gnomes and other related items for sale from the Gnome Museum in Germany that was closing and selling off their collection. I have an eclectic taste for art and history and there is a rich history dating back to the 1800’s on the production of gnomes for gardens and other mischievous adventures. Totally up my alley.
Q: How many gnomes do you have in your collection?
Travis: The last census is close to 200. I mostly collect vintage ones from the early 1920s. There were primarily two companies in Germany (Griebel and Heissner) who were the leaders in gnome production. They were originally made in clay and hand-painted. The Heissner Company introduced resin ones that were still hand-painted in the 1940s.
In doing my research on the history and folklore of gnomes, I had an opportunity to communicate to the descendants of both families. The granddaughter of the founder of the Griebel Company was the one that owned the Gnome Museum in Germany with her brother. My most prized gnome is a hand painted ceramic gnome holding music that was signed by both of them.
Q: You’ve appeared in some films dressed as a gnome. How did that go?
Travis: I restored a 1928 Montgomery Ward house on Sylvan Lake and have had several movies filmed there. I was on the way to a Halloween party dressed as a gnome while my house was used for filming “Ticket to the Circus,” and they asked for me to do a stand-in role. My house was also used as a location for another short film two years ago. After they saw my mini tugboat (Tugtanic) and a photo of me dressed as a gnome, they rewrote the script for their seven-minute short film called “Victor.” That flick has received 15 awards.
Q: When did you develop a love for horticulture?
Travis: I had one grandmother named Rose and another grandmother named Lily, and they were both fabulous gardeners.
Q: What can you tell us about your business?
Travis: It was founded in 1953 by Alfred H. Goldner, and was originally located near Telegraph and 12 Mile in Southfield on a small piece of property which is now a Popeyes restaurant. He moved his business to the former Pierce Floral greenhouse in 1980, and today we’re the longest-running business in Pontiac. I worked my first summer there while still in college in 1980. I started full time as a manager in 1982, and purchased the company in 1988. We are a full-service landscape design and installation company complimented with a full-service florist and event venue. We are now listed as the No. 4 top destination for Romantic Wedding venue in Michigan on Google.
Q: Back to those gnomes … how much money would it take for you to part with the whole collection?
Travis: Priceless.
Q: You’re also an accomplished pianist. How did that come about?
Travis: I distinctly remembered having a dream when I was 5, and saw two hands playing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” and woke up and played it on the piano the next morning. I play by ear and have a white key song and a black key song that I always forget how I played it the last time, so I replay a new version of it every time. I have some hybrid version of it that occasionally include both white and black keys. Every once in a while, I get crazy and record a song and post it on Facebook … usually after midnight when I seem to play better.
Piano gnome (Photo: submitted)
Q: You have a twin brother living in New Hampshire. Does he share your passion for music and gnomes?
Travis: We are identical twins. I always tease him by saying that he is a low grade mutation of me. Mike uses a different set of brain cells in his creativity. He tends to me more two dimensional, which explains his career choice in graphic art and advertising and marketing. I tend to be more three dimensional, which explains my career direction in landscaping, plants and sculptural art.
Q: Do you have any chicken or goat stories?
Travis: I have always been nature-focused in my interests and dreamed of being a gentleman farmer. I love chickens, and Pontiac had an ambiguous code for raising chickens. I decided that while hosting the State of the City Address for Pontiac several years ago, I would carry my favorite chicken (named Q-Tip) in my arms during the whole event. I figured that since all the Pontiac political dignitaries were present that if I didn’t get a citation by the end of the evening, I automatically ‘grandfathered’ them in … or should I say “grand-feathered” them in.
Pontiac and Oakland County folks were actually very receptive to the idea of my friend, Amy McIntire with City Girls Farm, employing a staff of 10 goats for making goat soap and lotions and ‘goatscaping’ for environmentally sustainable invasive species land clearing. Pontiac actually added language in their Master Plan to include nonconforming businesses.