Meet Your neighbors!
Introducing a new feature on our journal: Meet Your Neighbors!
Each month we will be introducing Ghent Neighborhood Members to our friends and community.
Ghent Neighborhood League Members to Know…Introducing Jason and Erin Edelman
If you live in Ghent, you probably know Jason and Erin Edelman as the couple that’s watching birds, studying wetlands, or meditating down by the Hague. Jason and Erin own Grandiflora Wine Garden in Chelsea as well as a little Airbnb at Colonial and Raleigh Avenues. And they never planned on doing any of this.
Jason is a software engineer by trade and Erin is a visionary environmental educator. They met at Virginia Tech and moved to Seattle, Washington after living in Richmond, Virginia for a year and a half. If you have never lived on the West Coast, it’s hard to explain their unique lifestyle there. They were trained as yoga teachers and were part of a nature connection school. Jason built software for Microsoft and a tiny startup and Erin directed summer camps and learned to make espresso on a vintage Italian manual machine. None of that describes the most important things about living in Washington state, which were all to be found in the wilderness. Nor does it answer: why did they give up this such an easy going way of life and decide to move to the city of Norfolk, Virginia?
After nearly a decade in Seattle Jason and Erin realized they were still out of place. Leaving friends,community, and land they love very much was the hardest thing about coming back. But Jason hasroots here – his mom’s parents built their life here after WWII, raising 7 kids, and his parents metat ODU – and none of Jason’s family is getting any younger. Initially Jason and Erin moved back to be with them, but they had already started feeling a draw to Norfolk during Christmas visits while they were still in Seattle.
When Jason and Erin first arrived in 2016, they lived near his parents at the Virginia Beach oceanfront. The culture shock was so strong they almost returned to Seattle. They stayed and tried to understand the way of life here, and what they saw was that some people aspire to be healthier, more present, more sober, more connected to themselves and nature. Jason and Erin thought that was hopeful, so they built a little business to share one of their practices for doing that…Chinese ceremonial tea. Iron Goddess Tea Room was their first business, and they very much appreciate all of their supporters for keeping it going.
Along the way, Jason and Erin made connections. Between careers they traveled extensively, always staying at Airbnb’s for superior hospitality. They bought a house on Colonial Ave in 2018 with the intention of living there, paying that hospitality forward, and being some of the first friendly faces people see when they arrive in Norfolk. The next year, their friend Kenny Gerry of Chelsea Bakehouse partnered with them to begin the project that would become Grandiflora. Latin for‘Great Flower,’ Grandiflora is a hospitality project in Chelsea that prefigures a more ethical andsustainable economy through natural wine and vegetarian cuisine. This has becomea platform for the community to gather and connect around these shared values as well as putting them into practice.
The other way you may have met Jason is through his participation in the GNL. Although Jason has vacated his Board seat to spend more time at Grandiflora, as long as he and Erin are living in Norfolk, he will continue to advocate for the living beings here. Jason believes the Ghent community has the potential to lead the way in solving problems facing cities across the globe, and that’s what he is here to help with.
We’re not alone in struggling for equitable housing, clean air and water, and green, healthypublic space. If you want to help, send Jason an email and meet him at the bar or the neighborhood league. Jason and Erin would love to meet you!
The GNL’s next Monthly Happy Hour is at Grandiflora on February 23rd. We’re excited to celebrate community and neighborliness with Grandiflora and our members.
