Fortunoff Christmas stores are back

Eleanor Palumbo's job is to dream about Christmas.

As chief architect behind Fortunoff's Christmas stores, Palumbo begins her search for ornaments and inspiration in January, traveling to showrooms around the world. By June she is letting Christmas "wash over" her, as she sits in her apartment creating detailed blueprints for holiday displays and many, many Christmas trees -- dripping in pearl drops, gold bows, tiny bird nests and angels.

And then it's showtime.

"I feel like it is a Broadway show every year when I open up," said Palumbo, a buyer for the Fortunoff Backyard Stores Christmas shops.

After a year's hiatus, the Fortunoff Christmas stores have returned; they're part of the new Fortunoff chain revived earlier this year after a partnership licensed the Fortunoff name from the family.

The old Fortunoff, founded in 1922 and once owned and run by the Fortunoff and Mayrock families, was sold twice to private equity firms and filed for bankruptcy protection twice before finally shutting down in May 2009. Palumbo has been designing the Christmas stores for two decades.

"There are two things Fortunoff is really known for -- outdoor furniture and Christmas," said Bernard Sensale, chief executive of the new chain of seven stores on Long Island and in New Jersey. "Customers would come in and say, 'Please tell us you're doing Christmas.' "

While the showroom in the main Westbury location is smaller than the one customers of the old Fortunoff will remember, Palumbo and the Fortunoff staff have still gone all out to create a visual spectacular of both the whimsical and the traditional in all the stores.

A wreath shop offers customers the advice of an expert to tailor their own creations. Then there's the music tree, which is covered in decorations in the shape of brassy trumpets, French horns, violins and gold notes. Rose-shaped lights cover the ballet-themed tree, along with ballet shoes, swans and tiny tutus and pearl drops.

Not far from that is the bird tree donned with little bird ornaments, delicate nests filled with tiny eggs, and a string of illuminated cardinal birds.

"I had all these bird ornaments, and I didn't know where to go with it," Palumbo said. "Then I said, 'Oh, I need to make a tree.' "

On an antique sleigh, a miniature Dickensian village of collectible buildings and figurines sits at the entrance, drawing shoppers into the holiday displays. Nearby are a miniature scene of the North Pole, complete with a peppermint house, and a wintry New York street scene with the Flatiron Building set atop a pedicab.

Finding the pedicab was a triumph of sorts for Palumbo and a co-worker. Throughout the year, this brainchild and others, like the antique sleigh or the door featured in a display for outdoor Christmas decorations, frequently end up on Sensale's desk as a wish list.

"Bernie's like, 'Why do we need a pedicab?' " Palumbo said, laughing.

"We do have a fair number of 'you're kidding me' conversations," Sensale admitted.

But in the end, the whole point is to offer shoppers a reprieve from the world and a little bit of holiday inspiration, said Art Daly, manager of the Westbury store.

"Eleanor gives them a vision," he noted. "When you go into other stores you don't get that vision."