| | | A family tree controls market Christmas dynasty | | December 22, 2009 |  | | | Voice Correspondent | | Elliot Warley Sr. appears to be the quintessential farmer as he parades up and down the rows of Christmas trees he vends outside Eastern Market, helping customers find the perfect holiday centerpiece and overseeing his busy staff.
He has a rangy gait and matter-of-fact demeanor. Beneath the outdoorsman’s knit cap, scarf and flannel shirt is a civil servant who spent a career in the executive office of five U.S. presidents.
“I’ve always loved the outdoors since camping with the Boy Scouts,” said Warley, who worked as an Office of Management and Budget analyst first under President Jimmy Carter until retiring in the early years of the George W. Bush administration. “And this is about as close to that as you can get in the city,” he said.
Warley works with his son, D.C. firefighter Elliot Warley Jr., and a half-dozen members of his extended family. His business, the Pennsylvania Avenue Tree Farm, has sold up to 2,000 Fraser fir trees at Eastern Market every year for almost three decades.
The family operation is eager to accommodate not only Capitol Hill’s affluent residents (D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is a regular), but also those who are “down and out,” the junior Warley said. The Warleys employ a few neighborhood homeless people every year to help sweep up pine needles and deliver the trees to customers’ homes, and they are allowed to keep and sell any surplus trees left over on Christmas Eve.
The staff also chips in to employ someone to stay at the outdoor site every night to watch the trees, armed with a TV, an antennae and a small heater.
“I really enjoy doing this,” Warley Jr. said. “We try to help any way we can.”
A D.C, native and Southwest resident, Warley Sr. has been selling Christmas trees every December since 1980, when he and his wife bought a farm in Berkley Springs, W.Va.
“It was natural to buy in the country,” he said, “and being a city boy, I couldn’t see myself growing vegetables.”
Shortly after his accountant told him he had to start a business in order to pay less taxes on the land, Warley stumbled on a beautiful fir tree on his 30-acre property and had an epiphany. He started selling the trees in 1980. He moved to different lots throughout the city but had a hard time competing with the larger businesses that could charge cheaper, flat rates for their trees.
A friend who worked in the area suggested relocating to Eastern Market, and after confirming with the city government he was indeed a farmer, to comply with the market’s regulations, Warley began his current operation.
“I came to this neighborhood and said, ‘My goodness,’” Warley recounted. “There are really good customers here.”
Pennsylvania Avenue Tree Farm will stay open through Christmas Eve. Prices range from $25 to $300 for a 14- to 15-foot tree. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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