A third generation of Ghilotti brothers
assumed control of the business in 2000 when
Mario’s two sons, Mike and Dante, acquired
ownership. Dino and Mario have since passed
away and now, with nearly 250 employees, well
over 100 trucks and graders and $100 million
in gross annual business, Mike Ghilotti, 55, is
quick to say, “This is definitely not a business
for the faint of heart.”
However, it’s likely a fourth generation will
someday be taking the company reins. “Right
now my son Mario is studying construction
management at Cal Poly San Louis Obispo,”
Mike proudly says.
• • •
At the Chicago Exposition of 1905, prominent San Rafael citizen Arthur W. Foster and
his wife, Louisiana, met a young German horticulturist named Richard Lohrmann. It was
a fortuitous encounter. Lohrmann had only
recently arrived in Chicago and wanted a place
to put his love of plants to work. The Fosters
convinced him to come to San Rafael and landscape Fairhill, their 250-acre hillside estate.
By 1909, Lohrmann had completed Fairhill
and decided to open West End Nursery on San
Rafael’s Fifth Avenue. Approaching 110 years
later, it is still open; same name, same two-acre
location, and same family ownership.
Because Lohrmann had no children, in
1954 he sold his business to his nephew, Karl
Untermann, who shared the family’s love of
all things gardening. And West End Nursery
began spreading its business throughout Marin
County. A turning point was the relationship
Untermann formed with Niels Schultz Jr., the
master planner and developer of the community he named Greenbrae. In the late 1950s and
early ’60s, West End Nursery supplied countless parkway trees, median plantings and
apartment and shopping center landscapes for
Schultz’s sprawling development.
Soon, more jobs followed. The City of San
Rafael ordered its parkway trees from West
End Nursery; so did Larkspur, Corte Madera
and San Anselmo. In the go-go years of the ’60s
and ’70s, Marin General Hospital and College
of Marin were good customers, as were many of
Marin’s high schools.
In the 1990s, with Karl Untermann’s son
Tom running the operation, retail became the
focus of the nursery’s business. Now, accord-
ing to Tom, his son Chris — representing West
End Nursery’s fourth generation of family own-
ership — is calling all the shots. “I still enjoy
coming to work,” says Tom, 69, “but it’s really
Chris who runs the show.”
But it’s hardly the Chris and Tom show.
Tom’s wife, Merrie, keeps West End Nursery’s
books, and Chris’ wife, Barb, stages “Christmas
House,” the holiday extravaganza that draws
customers and visitors from throughout the
Bay Area. And together the two women travel
to trade shows to ensure all merchandise is
up-to-the-latest.
“We’re probably the last of the indepen-
dent nurseries,” Tom says, “and proud of it.”
He recalls how more than 60 years ago his
dad Karl would design plans for first-time
homeowners, then go out with his crews to
install. “He must have landscaped thou-
sands of homes around Marin,” Untermann
recalls, “and we still get customers coming in
and ordering, ‘you know, bushes and flowers
like your dad planted around the house a long
time ago.’ ”
He imagines (and hopes) his son Chris
will be getting similar requests, proving once
again that not all Chinese proverbs are true
in the end. m
“BY 1909,
LOHRMANN
HAD COM-
PLETED
FAIRHILL
AND
DECIDED
TO OPEN
WEST END
NURSERY
ON SAN
RAFAEL’S
FIFTH
AVENUE.”
Opposite from top: The Ghilottis hard at work on a Victorian
and also the Civic Center. Above: West End Nursery’s Karl
Untermann (left) and an employee.
