Petoskey's Flora Bae Boutique Marks Five Years With Fresh Shifts

What began as a small jewelry shop on Howard Street has spent five years quietly becoming something harder to categorize. Flora Bae Home at 209 Howard St. in downtown Petoskey now stocks plants, home decor, books, and jewelry alongside two custom experiences that owner Natalie Lauzon built from scratch: a permanent jewelry service and a create-your-own fragrance bar called Bae Atelier.

"It will be our five-year anniversary this coming May, Mother's Day weekend," Lauzon said. "What's really amazing is that we're constantly evolving."

She opened the store with a specific kind of space in mind: one that could "allow connection, community, love, beauty, nature and just a place where you could come in and just feel good vibes." The permanent jewelry service, introduced roughly two and a half years ago, has become one of the clearest expressions of that intent. Lauzon describes the clientele in telling detail: "A lot of mothers and daughters or kids going to college or boyfriends and girlfriends. And they come in and get a custom designed bracelet or anklet." The jewelry is welded in-store, the bond meant to outlast the occasion that prompted it.

The more recent addition, Bae Atelier, took about a year to develop and was inspired by a small fragrance bar Lauzon encountered at a hotel in California. She noted that perfume had already proven itself a strong seller at Flora Bae, which gave her confidence to expand. The bar, now tucked into the very back of the store, lets customers blend room and linen sprays, reed diffusers, or essential oil roller ball perfumes, with car diffusers set to roll out in the coming weeks.

Sourcing was not an afterthought. Dried florals, which customers can press into their custom creations alongside imported crystals, come from a local grower. The fragrance and essential oils are supplied by a Michigan-based company. "They're all high-end, ethically sourced fragrance oils," Lauzon said. "It's very hard to find fragrance oils that are not synthetic, so these are synthetic, but they are as clean as they can be. And we follow the International Fragrance Association's rules and regulations. I did all the research to make sure that what we're blending is safe for skin, body, linens."

That level of specificity, applied to a product most boutiques would simply stock off a shelf, reflects how Lauzon has approached each expansion. Bae Atelier took a full year to develop before it opened in 2025. The permanent jewelry service arrived before that, and the store's botanical-inspired core, the plants and books and layered home goods visible the moment you walk in, was there from the beginning. The five-year anniversary arrives Mother's Day weekend 2026, and by that point, Flora Bae will have added at least one more product category to its fragrance lineup.