The Wellington Chamber of Commerce Welcomes
The Wellington Design Center As A New Member
Submitted by Monica Kallas, SharpShooter Marketing
Pictured L-R: Carmine Marino, Audra Leech, Joseph Leech, Karen Paull, Michael Gordon, Mark “Boz” Bozicevic, Laura Jaffe, Denise Carpenter.The Wellington Chamber of Commerce recently had a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for The Wellington Design Center located at 9312 Forest Hill Boulevard, Wellington, Florida. Michael Gordon and Karen Paull are partners/owners of the store. If you are looking to design or redesign your home, theirs is the one stop shop you should visit to decorate from the ceilings to the floors and everything in between.
Michael was born in the Bronx, New York and raised in Plainview, Long Island where he graduated high school. He received an Associates Degree from NassauCommunity College. He then went to QueensCollege and earned a B.A. in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology in West Virginia.
After school, Michael went back to Queens and began his career as a therapist and started his own practice. Over the years, Michael taught special education at BOCES on Long Island, worked at a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed boys, ran a group home with his wife, and then opened up a nursery school and day camp K-3, which he ran for 8 years.
In 1991, Michael and his wife moved to Coral Springs, Florida. Michael said he started to sell little “chachkees” at area flea markets which included wholesale pictures and artwork. Liking his new direction, he opened an artwork and framing store in Stuart and then later in West Palm Beach. The Art Colony, as it was called then, was successful so in 2006 Michael expanded again and took over an existing framing store in Wellington, Florida while his daughter worked at the West Palm Beach store.
Michael ran the store as an art and framing store and then the space next door became available. He said, “That’s when Karen came into the picture and we decided we were going to do something big.” Since the adjacent side was vacant at the time, they took up both spaces and opened the wall. They discontinued the art and framing business and created their new store, The Wellington Design Center, with one side being a flooring center and the other side being a design center. The flooring center is run by Joseph Leech of Wellington Wood Floors who offers a variety of wood floors plus unique, hand crafted flooring. They opened up their doors January of this year.
Michael explained that he and Karen have only known each other for 3 years prior to creating their partnership. Karen and her husband had four showrooms/design centers in New Jersey complete with designers and work room. With her 32 years of experience in the industry it seemed to be a good move for them to partner in the business.
In describing the business, Karen said, “We offer an array of different things for the customer and designer. We do flooring, windows, design, we have designer fabrics, we do wallpaper, we have custom furniture, custom framing, custom rugs, anything for the home that the customer needs. We can take an empty house and design it from floor to ceiling. We have ASID designers on staff that work for us. We also have professional installers.”
“Our pricing is excellent.” Karen continued. “Because we have been in the business so long we have very good connections with the vendors and we get very good pricing which we pass along to our customers. We also do smaller jobs. If someone wants to do blinds on one window, they shouldn’t be afraid to come in here. We will do one blind on a window. No job is too small.”
The WellingtonDesignCenter is involved in the community and helps out local schools by framing team jerseys. For more information about The Wellington Design Center call 561.223.3709. You can email them at [email protected] and visit their website at www.wellingtoninteriordesigncenter.com. For more information about businesses in the WellingtonFlorida area, call 561.792.6525 or visit the Wellington Chamber of Commerce website at www.WellingtonChamber.com.