Alexandria, VA – If you’ve lived in Alexandria for any length of time, you have probably seen Royce Cohen, but you may have wondered, who is that elegant little lady with the great hairstyle, oversized glasses, and that raucous laugh?
For decades, Royce has been scurrying in and out of functions, from small dinner parties to gigantic galas, carrying various arrangements of flowers and tablescapes, holiday wreaths, and decorative accents. Maybe you spotted her in a hallway, fastening boutonnieres and corsages on the nervously shaking lapels of a wedding party or an award recipient. You may also have met her at any of those elegant functions, beautifully coiffed and seated at a head table or with the guests of honor.
If you know only one thing, know this. Her creations are always strikingly artistic and scream “signature Royce.” And Royce Cohen is part of the fabric in Alexandria.
Royce E. Cohen’s eyes flare with excitement when she talks about her careers and life choices. A go-to word for Cohen is “Passion” with a capital “P.”
It is there for flowers—not just for peonies and birds of paradise and countless other unique blooms, but also for her canine companions, her real princesses and princes.
Cohen credits her longevity and business achievements to her father’s philosophy that finding your passion leads to success. “It’s the flowers that turn me on!” she exclaims.
You Have to Love What You Do
“My father, an orthopaedic surgeon, used to say that while he ‘didn’t like everything he did, he loved what he did.’ Likewise, my inner zeal is driven to floral design,” says Royce. “The flower business was the inevitable next step.”
Describing the first time she entered a floral wholesaler while still a stockbroker in downtown Washington, Cohen almost shouts, “I was overwhelmed. It was orgasmic! I was hooked even then. Have you ever been to one of those floral warehouses? It’s gorgeous!”
Her distinguished floral designs recently elevated Cohen to the halls of power in this country when she served as a design team member for the 2024 White House Holiday Decoration Committee. She now has a gallery of photos of herself and the floral designs in the East Room, dwarfed by an enormous white mantel heavy with striking holiday decorations, and in the State Dining Room, beside a very large painting of a contemplative Abraham Lincoln portrait by George P. A. Healy. In another photo, Cohen stands proudly in front of the Gold Star Families’ trees designed by her team.
“Having made the decision back in 1988 to follow my passion for floral design, I haven’t looked back,” Cohen explained—and also noted that it is her third career, and, in reality, not the one she studied history for at Vassar (Class of 1966) or in graduate school at the State University of New York. Newly graduated with a master’s degree, Cohen said she moved to Washington, D.C, in 1969 to take a job in a two-year stint as a management intern with the federal government—adding that she wasn’t even considering thinking about a long-term career. The native of Schenectady said her decision to come to the D.C. area followed several summers as a Congressional intern in the office of her Congressman Leo O’Brien.
Fortunately for Cohen, a friendship with a senior vice president helped Cohen move to a position as a stockbroker for 15 years, first with Ferris & Company and then five years with Prudential. It wasn’t until she visited the Old Town Farmers Market in Alexandria that her passion was awakened with a budding interest in flowers.
“I knew what I wanted to do then. So, I started selling flowers at the farmers market every weekend from 1988 until 2003, and “The rest, as they say, is history!” she chuckled with a roll of her expressive eyes hiding behind oversized rectangle greenish-camouflaged glasses.
“I was always “artistic;” not an artist, but visual, creative, using my hands to create…displays, maps, in school (rather than written papers), ceramics, making things out of aluminum foil,” she continued. “Growing up, I was always the one fixing things, like broken dishes, etc. I used to say that next to my father (as a surgeon, happily, he was the most talented one in the family), I was the “go-to.”
Cohen’s acumen for design and arrangement catapulted her into a demanding career in custom flower design, beginning in her home garage and ultimately leading to a brick-and-mortar shop in Del Ray before she returned to setting up her current private design studio.
“I moved to the Del Ray neighborhood in 1997 when a ‘farmhouse’ was being renovated. I lived above the shop until I transitioned to a design studio and separated my personal space from the flower operation” she recalls.
“Today’s challenge…as life has developed through the years…is how to ‘feed the beast’ in today’s ever-changing retail environment. The beast, my passion,” she added.
Cohen, who is Jewish, notes how vital her dogs are and that a long list of canine “Jewish American princesses and princes” have always been alongside her during her career journey.
In 1979, she started with two “Black Lab-Goldens” retrievers “princesses” named Zelda and Precious. She then segued to two “13-inch” (miniature) Beagle princes, Max and Sam (from a farmer at Eastern Market on the Hill). After that, she adopted a “beautiful Black Lab” named Lucky from a family in Oklahoma City, who died in 2018.
And during a visit to Pet Smart a few years back, she came upon another beagle, Sylvie, who she adopted. Three years later, at a “Clear the Shelter” event at the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, Ruppert, a Heinz 57-mixed breed, joined the family. Like most animal lovers, Cohen talks about her pets as her family.
Dogs and floral coolers, like the huge ones found in her Maryland wholesalers, continue to drive her days.
Before the recent publicity surrounding the holiday designs at the White House, Cohen has continually been involved in numerous high-profile events, including an Annual Tribute at Arlington Cemetery to Pan Am Flight 103 (since its crash on December 21, 1988, in Lockerbie, Scotland), hosted in part by Syracuse University (35 students perished) and the Lord Advocate of Scotland Solicitor General, among others. Her loyal customers know and appreciate her distinctive one-of-a-kind arrangements.
“I don’t want to pigeonhole myself to a particular style, period,” she said. “I want my pieces to have that “un certain je ne sais quoi,” meaning the essence of something unique that is hard to put into words.
She believes she has achieved that goal for the world to see with the invitation to design at the White House this past year.
“I’ve lived in Washington since 1969, and until last year, when friends invited me to go on a behind-the-ropes holiday tour, I had not even been in the White House. It was on my bucket list,” she said. “And then this past November 30th to December 1st, I was on a 300-member design team for the entire White House” divided into rooms, halls, and grounds.
“Our team of three was assigned to decorate the Gold Star Families room that was featured on an HDTV program covering the holiday decorations that aired on Dec. 15th. Subsequently, Cohen was also invited to attend a reception for all the invited designers.
Today, Cohen is still working, and stays on top of what’s going on in the community and the world. “I’m up to the challenge to keep feeding my passion,” she says reassuringly as she scrolls through her Facebook page, stopping to read a friend’s recent comment about one of her posted floral designs .
“I started posting the flowers from many of my jobs,” she says, describing how she began posting almost daily during the 2020 Covid-19 era “to lift people’s spirits.”
She reads through a few comments, “That’s beautiful—exactly what I love in a floral arrangement!” with another admirer adding, “It’s not a floral arrangement. It’s a Royce!”
“I love that! It’s a Royce!” Cohen laughed as she clapped her hands in the air.
