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Carrie
Lachman

A Gaggle of Gifts

Lachman & Co. has been a family-owned shopping
destination for 110 years.

BY MICHAEL ALLEN

he hum of snowblowers
and the whir of defrost-
ing cars and trucks mean
only one thing: The holi-
days are upon us. With holidays,
comes the inevitable quest to find
the perfect gift for everyone.
That quest always leads to the same
revelation: Finding those gifts isn't any
easier than it was at this time last year,
which is what most everyone figured
out last year, too, but forgot until
now
Fortunately for everyone looking for
that something special, there's
Lachman & Co. in Southfield. The

11/28
2003

14G

family-owned business has been a
Detroit-area staple for gift-givers for
100 years.
Located just north of Eight Mile on
Telegraph Road, Lachman & Co. sells
a variety of jewelry, custom awards
and executive gifts. Most of its busi-
ness is corporate, but the company
sells to individuals, too:
"I think that people don't realize we
deal with the public," says Carrie
Lachman, who is the great-grand-
daughter of the founder, and co-owns
the store with three other siblings.
"When people come in here for the
first time, they say 'I didn't realize

there were so many different things in
here. I'm so glad I finally stopped in.'
We can create a piece for anybody. We
just have a lot of really creative and
wonderful things in here."
While the store does sell many
stereotypical "executive gifts," such as
vases, pen sets, clocks and picture
frames, it also sells some jewelry and
other specialty items. A stroll through
the store can feel like a walk through a
vault of crystal and silver, however
there are plenty of fine wood and
stone pieces available. Most of the gifts
can be personalized, and all of the
etching is done on-site.

In fact, the ability to do design and
produce gifts in-house is one of the
tenets of the company, which was
founded in 1893 by Joseph Lachman,
a Lithuanian watchmaker, who settled
in Detroit. He opened his shop on
Michigan Avenue selling watches and
jewelry and, in a sign of the times, he
even had a cow in the back courtyard
of the building.
"I'm not certain what the cow was
for, but it went away and the court-
yard eventually became a parking lot,"
Lachman says.
Throughout the years, the offerings
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