Orchid Dynasty
“We were young and confident. In one year, we opened Orchid Dynasty, got married, and I was pregnant.” Shelly Huynh smiled when she said it, remembering a time when everything seemed possible. Born in Vietnam, she arrived in the United States as a toddler in 1979, one of the “boat people” whose families risked everything to flee.
Before Utah, there was a year in a Malaysian refugee camp. Shelly does not remember it, but her older siblings do - the ration lines, a can of sardines shared among five, a single pound of rice carefully measured for a family. Her mother applied to countries all over the world, and it was America that answered. A sponsoring family in Utah welcomed them, helped them find a home, and gave the children their American names. Her father began again as a dishwasher and later worked in a paper plant. Her mother assembled medical parts. There were five children, a new language to learn, and a life to rebuild one day at a time.
Shelly grew up creative - the self-described “black sheep” of the family. Piano lessons and sports never held her interest; she was happiest with a needle, a paintbrush, or a pile of scraps. Bob Ross on television, Sesame Street crafts, sewing tiny Barbie dresses at the kitchen table - that was her early art school. In high school, she dreamed of being a fashion designer, a newscaster like Connie Chung, or even an actress - always drawn to beauty, to expression, to story.
At seventeen, Shelly left for Los Angeles to attend the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. Tuition was covered, but living was not. After too many nights of ramen and worry, she came home. At the University of Utah, she explored costume design, sculpture, and studio art, draping ideas as if they were fabric, but nothing quite fit. Then came a job as a billing clerk at DWF, a wholesale flower house. That was where everything began to take root. Flowers were more than decoration. To Shelly, they were alive with meaning - color, form, and feeling intertwined.
Around that same time, Shelly met Clint Lewis. He had grown up in Salt Lake City, the kind of boy who spent hours paging through his grandmother’s endless stacks of National Geographic magazines. She pointed out the wonders of the natural world - its quiet systems and unhurried grace - and he listened. A lifelong reader and lover of history, Clint was fascinated by how humans and nature evolved side by side. When he met Shelly, her creativity reignited that curiosity. Her art became a language he understood instinctively, and his fascination with plants deepened her appreciation for structure and science. Together they began to see beauty from both sides - her emotion and movement, his patience and study. And from that union, Orchid Dynasty was born.
Shelly and Clint opened their first shop in 2001. The name, Orchid Dynasty, is a tribute to Shelly’s heritage and to the rare, enduring beauty they hoped to share. Within months, September 11 changed everything, but they pressed on. The shop in the Foothills lasted nine years; the second, at 9th and 9th, another nine. In 2017, they found a derelict welding shop in the Granary District - raw, industrial, sunlit, and full of potential. It took nearly two years to gut and rebuild, but by April 2019, the doors opened again. Less than a year later, the pandemic arrived, and once more, they adapted. Deliveries, devotion, and a loyal community kept them going.
Step inside today, and their partnership is everywhere. Clint’s side feels like a living museum - a place where botany meets philosophy. Rows of orchids in extraordinary colors and shapes share space with tropical trees, rare succulents, and cacti. His greenhouse, open by appointment, feels sacred - a space of deep calm and reverence. Some orchids in his care have evolved to depend on a single pollinator found on one side of a mountain range. Clint can tell you their entire lineage, their scent, and the history of how they were first recorded. He reads constantly, studies endlessly, and travels to learn. He has become known across the world among orchid growers and collectors, respected for both his knowledge and his integrity. “There is not another group of plants like orchids,” he said. “Their colors, textures, fragrances, and the way they are pollinated - each is a universe.”
Across the way, Shelly’s studio hums with motion. Weddings, memorials, corporate installations, and daily arrangements fill the space with color and rhythm. She approaches her work as sculpture, using flowers as her medium. Her art has taken her around the world - from Panama to Vietnam, to galleries and runways where models wear living gowns of flowers, and installations are meant to be touched, breathed, and then allowed to fade. She is now recognized internationally for this work, her ephemeral “flower art” celebrated for its power to turn nature into emotion.
Together, this quiet, yet powerful couple lead Orchid Dynasty with balance and care. The vision is shared even as they give each other space to lead their own realms. About fifteen people keep the business running day to day, with extra hands for events and orchid shows. They have learned that for a family business to thrive, they must constantly communicate, align, and trust. “We try to be on the same page,” Clint said. “If we are not, it shows.”
They divide by strength - Clint grows, Shelly designs - but every decision loops back to both. They joke that they are each other’s best marketing department. “We are a mom-and-pop shop,” Clint said, “literally. But we still run it professionally. We just happen to love doing it together.”
Through it all - 9/11, the financial crisis, the pandemic - they have kept the same rhythm: learn, adapt, grow. They raised two children among petals and soil. In 2025, their daughter is pursuing a PhD in physics in Hawaii, while her brother is finishing college at the University of Utah and still helps part-time in the shop. As a family, they have traveled extensively - Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, Bali, Hawaii - not to collect the wild, but to study it and build lasting relationships with ethical growers.
“We feel fortunate every day to be doing what we love,” Clint said. “I still have to pinch myself sometimes. We could be doing anything else, but we get to do this.” Shelly often returns to one word: resilience. It runs through her family’s journey, through their business, through the cycles of bloom and loss that define both art and nature. “Flowers are impermanent,” she said. “They fade, but their beauty still matters.”
In 2026, Orchid Dynasty will celebrate twenty-five years. Shelly thinks of the mothers who have become grandmothers, the couples who return with children of their own, the families who have turned to them for every milestone: weddings, births, funerals, anniversaries, and ordinary Tuesdays that call for something beautiful. Clint thinks of the quiet joy of returning home after a few weeks away to find the greenhouse transformed, new blooms unfurled, others gone - the steady miracle of change.
What they sell sounds simple enough: orchids, tropicals, succulents, floral design. What they offer, however, is something more enduring: trust, experience, and care. “As long as the name Orchid Dynasty is around,” Clint said, “it will still be us behind it. We will always care about the customer, the aesthetic, and the experience. We feel fortunate every day to be doing what we love.”
