French home finance

Tami Roth first fell in love with all things francaise on a vacation to Paris in 1993. She had picked the City of Light on a whim, enticed by cheap airfares and the fact that she spoke passable college French.

"I think I walked around with my mouth hanging open in amazement at how beautiful it was--the buildings, the old stonework, the way the Seine kind of curled around the city. You could stand anywhere and just be mesmerized."

More than anything, Tami was captivated by the easy, elegant way the French go about their lives--stopping in a card for a cup of coffee and conversation, shopping for the evening meal in markets where the food is displayed like a gorgeous still-life painting. It was so different from her days as a corporate advertising director in Minneapolis, where she grabbed coffee, on the run and ate take-out from plastic containers.

As Tami strolled the Streets of Paris that chilly February, the dream of a different life was taking shape--a life inspired by s passion for beauty and creativity rather than climbing the corporate ladder.

"I knew on the very first trip that this life was what I wanted to pursue,'" she says. "I just didn't know how I was going to make it happen."

Flash forward to a brisk fall morning nine years later. Antique garden furniture spills from a storefront, which is decked in a bright green awning and red-striped window boxes. Inside, gracefully aged shutters, old porch columns, and floral oil paintings lean against a wall. Sunlight streams through a stained-glass window. The fragrance of dried lavender mingles with citrus-scented soaps and candles.

Dressed in a black sweater and crisp white blouse, the proprietress greets a visitor with a cheery, "Bonjour." This could be a little shop in St. Germaine des Pres. Mais non. But it is a small shopping center on the south side of Minneapolis.

Tami opened Meli-Melo on Bastille Day two years ago. (A derivative of the word melange, says Tami, the name roughly translates as "a little of this and a little of that.") Since then, the shop has found a loyal following of customers, drawn to its unusual inventory of French antiques and decorative items: chunky architectural fragments and carved wooden chandeliers, gilded mirros and vintage linen suitcases, silver loving cups, gold-glazed confit pots, and enamel kitchen canisters.

Tami handpicks each item during frequent buying trips to France, taking time to learn a little of its provenance. One such conversation led her to the home of a woman in Provence who sells dried lavender and paints beautiful baskets. "She invited me to dinner and we ate in her kitchen," says Tami. "We had the best time. She was so kind and gracious and friendly. It was part of her way of doing business."

Tami hopes to create a similar atmosphere at Meli-Melo. "Walk into her shop and there is a lot of hugging and laughter," says one frequent customer. "And her walls are red, which just makes you feel happy."

It's a way of life that Tami could only dream of 10 years ago. But through hard work and determination--and an unexpected twist of fate--it has become her reality.

After that first trip to Paris, Tami went back whenever she could steal a week or two from her hectic work schedule. She started bringing bits of France home, just a -few trinkets at first and then larger pieces. Friends and family eagerly anticipated the contents of her overstuffed suitcases and bulky carry-on bags. Thinking there must be a better way to get her purchases home--and possibly finance future trips--Tami took a crash course in importing. Then, in a 10-day shopping extravaganza in the fall of 1998, she filled her first 40-foot shipping container.

When the shipment arrived in Minneapolis the following January, she briefly wondered if she'd lost her mind. "It's freezing out, there's snow everywhere, the truck is parked in an alley behind my house, and they're hauling stuff into my basement. I'm at work, so there's my mom and dad unpacking stuff for me," she says. "I kid them that this business should be called `Chez Mom and Dad.'"

A few weeks later, Tami invited 70 people to her home and sold half the merchandise in one day. "It was pure bedlam. We couldn't write up the tickets fast enough."

After that, she started doing antiques shows in her spare time and building a database of customers. She began looking for retail space, thinking she might open a shop just on weekends. She still didn't think she was ready to chase her dream full-time. "I was afraid to take the jump."

But fate intervened. In July 2000, Tami returned from France to find that she was out of a job. If a 20-year career in advertising sales had taught her anything, it was that there's no such thing as a sure thing. Three days after cleaning out her old office, she opened Meli-Melo.

"The job loss was my impetus to succeed even more," she says. "I thought, `Okay, this is going to happen and it's goIng to be big.'"

In some ways, Tami is working harder now than ever. Meli-Melo is open five days a week; on her days off, she schedules design consultations, works on mailings, or rearranges displays. She travels to France on buying trips three or four times a year, staying in a favorite little hotel near the Louvre where the owner knows her by name. She also accompanies small groups of clients on occasional shopping excursions.

Yet compared with her life before, her days now have a completely different rhythm, one more closely in tune with the pace of life she first admired so long ago in Paris. Instead of cramming business trips with meetings, she schedules time for a facial and dinner with Mends. Instead of rushing to the office by 8 a.m., she takes time to walk her dog, Sammy, and enjoy the morning. Best of all: "I no longer have the Monday morning dreads," she says.

Most important, she now defines success on her own terms, instead of striving to meet someone else's expectations.

"If I were to give advice to anyone thinking about starting a business, I'd say plan for the worst and hope for the best," Tami says. "And be prepared to put in nine days a week. But when it's your dream and it's what you love, it is such a fortunate position to be in."