Brandywine Valley businesses are getting a Christmas bonus — from Longwood Gardens
When Longwood turns on the holiday lights, the area is "twice as busy," a restaurant owner says.
It’s December, by far the coldest week of the season to date and due to get colder, but to Jeff Hulbert, the Brandywine Valley these days evokes July — July at the Jersey Shore, that is.
Business has been brisk, and the human traffic thick along State Street, where he and partner Sandra Morris own and operate the popular Portabello’s of Kennett Square restaurant.
Like the peak summer weeks at the Shore, where Hulbert used to work in Atlantic City, this time of year, the Kennett Square area “is twice as busy.” The reason, in a word, is “Longwood.”
Specifically, the annual “Longwood Christmas” festival, an “economic engine” not only for Kennett but for other towns in the region, said Cheryl B. Kuhn, CEO of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce.
Longwood has played a “significant role in the area’s growth,” said Nancy Toltain, director of hotel operations at the Hilton Garden Inn in Kennett. Some guests book their reservations a year in advance, she said.
This year, the merchants on Kennett Street got a jump on the season by turning on the holiday lights and staging the July Fourth-style parade — complete with Mummers and a marching band — on Nov. 22, a week earlier than usual.
It was no coincidence that the event coincided with the first weekend that Longwood, four miles to the northeast and about twice the size of the borough, was throwing the switch to illuminate about 500,000 lights for its annual “Longwood Christmas” festival.
The exuberance is understandable. The Longwood light show is a cause for celebration among the merchants in downtown Kennett Square, a time when business, shall we say, mushrooms in the so-called Mushroom Capital of the World.
Longwood Christmas is a huge draw — 650,000 people visited last season, which ran from Nov. 22, 2024, to Jan. 11, 2025 — one-third of the annual total. And a whole lot of those who bonded with the plants and the lights ended up in downtown Kennett eating or shopping.
Moving up the Kennett fest paid immediate dividends, said Daniel Embree, executive director of the Kennett Collaborative, a nonprofit development group that works with Kennett businesses.
Downtown merchants reported “record-breaking” sales Thanksgiving week, he said, and it gave them five pre-Christmas weekends to make hay, rather than four. They’re planning an encore early start next year.
Sandra Morris said she and Hulbert will be ready, that in the run-up to the Longwood Christmas, “We know that we need to be staffed up and ready.”
Local business people and tourism officials say the region’s diverse population and attractions, in addition to Longwood, are tourist draws.
The Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford, famous for its Wyeth family paintings, not to mention its elaborate toy train set, and northern Delaware’s Winterthur, with a museum renowned for its Americana collection and its walking paths winding through 1,000 pastoral acres, have long lured holiday crowds.
But if the area could be likened to a decorated room, Longwood would be the lighted tree with the star on top.
“If there were no Longwood Gardens, there would be no Portabello’s,” said Hulbert.
About the Gardens and the Longwood effect
Longwood Gardens, located on land that Pierre DuPont opened to the public in 1921, is one of the nation’s preeminent horticultural attractions.
It covers about 1,100 acres, the majority of which is in East Marlborough Township, with the rest in Kennett and Pennsbury Townships. (It has a Kennett Square postal address, but none of it is in the borough, popular perception notwithstanding.)
About 1.78 million people visited in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, said spokesperson Patricia Evans, more than double the total of 15 years ago. According to its tax filing for the previous fiscal year, it generated about $35 million in admission and restaurant revenue.
Longwood’s $250 million investment in new buildings and landscaping, part of the “Longwood Reimagined” project, was completed just before last season’s Longwood Christmas, and that likely contributed to a 7% increase in the holiday traffic, compared with last season, Evans said.
All the land and its building are worth about $160 million, according to Chester County tax records.
Close to 90% of that is tax exempt, Longwood having won a landmark case in the late 1990s, but local officials and business people say the region has reaped significant economic benefits from the gardens.
“Longwood is an excellent regional partner,” said Chester County Tourism’s Nina Kelly.
While the biggest impacts have been on local tourism and hotels, the presence of Longwood probably has given a boost to property values in the area, at least indirectly, said Geoffrey Bosley owner of the local real estate concern LGB Properties & The Market at Liberty Place, a food court and event space on State Street.
In Kennett Square, aggregate commercial property values have increased nearly 30% in the last 20 years, adjusting for inflation, state tax records show.
Longwood and Kennett Square
Kennett Square, literally a square mile, is home to many of those who work in the local mushroom industry. Latino residents constitute about half the borough’s population.
Its median household income, about $75,000, according to Census figures, is among the lowest in Chester County and about half that of some of its wealthier neighboring towns.
Tourism, particularly Longwood-related, has been a huge boon to the businesses by any measure.
While the town has just under 6,000 residents, it has a total restaurant seating capacity of 2,000, said Hulbert.
In all, the downtown has about 150 businesses, said Embree. Part of the allure is Kennett Square’s quaintness and unaffected small-town atmosphere, but Longwood is a huge factor. “That’s why they want to be here,” he said.
Said Hulbert, “When Longwood Gardens is slow, we are slow. When they are busy, we are busy.”
While moving up the Kennett Square’s holiday parade gave sales a healthy boost, “I don’t want to overstate the significance of the date,” Embree said.
Longwood has supported the Kennett Collaborative financially and in other ways, said Embree. The illuminated decorative bunting on State Street was donated by Longwood, a highlight in the conservatory during the 2023 display.
Said Geoffrey Bosley, “I don’t think you would have as robust a town if we didn’t have a Longwood that would drive so much traffic, especially during the holiday season.”