Day 353: Tokio Florist, Los Angeles, California
📌APIA Every Day (353) - Tokio Florist, originally opened in 1929, was one of the many Japanese floriculture businesses that shaped the early flower-growing industry in Los Angeles. From 1960 to 2006, the Sakai-Kozawa family operated their enterprise from a residential property on Hyperion Avenue. Although Tokio Florist has since closed, the remaining building stands as a testament to the contributions of Japanese American entrepreneurs to California’s horticultural landscape.
Yuki Sakai, recently widowed in 1929, originally founded Tokio Florist as a small flower stand on Los Feliz Boulevard to support herself and her five young children. With help from her family and the neighboring Kuromi family—who operated nearby flower farms—Sakai’s business thrived into the following decades. During World War II, however, the Sakai family had to close their longstanding enterprise as they were forced into an incarceration camp. After the war, the family eventually reopened Tokio Florist but were displaced again in 1960 by developers constructing new apartment buildings in the neighborhood.
Yuki, along with her daughter Sumi Kozawa, son-in-law Frank Kozawa, and grand-daughter Susie Kozawa, then moved into a home on Hyperion Boulevard. To reinstate their business, they converted the garage into a potting shed, constructed a greenhouse, and installed shop equipment under the port cochere. The rest of the property was dedicated for growing flowers and cultivating a Japanese garden. Customers continued to frequent Tokio Florist until 2006, when the family decided to close the shop, twelve years after Yuki’s passing.
In 2019, with support from Susie Kozawa and members of the local community, Tokio Florist was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. That same year, the family sold the property to a developer for $3.4 million. In 2024, the building’s new owner, Chris Amendola, announced plans to adaptively reuse the space as a boutique hotel. The project is subject to ongoing approval from the city’s Office of Historic Resources to ensure that the site’s historic legacy is preserved.
Written by Avneet Dhaliwal
LEARN MORE:
LA Conservancy: Sakai-Kozawa Residence/Tokio Florist and Pole Sign
Civic Memory Working Group: Tokio Florist
Curbed LA: Silver Lake’s Tokio Florist climbing toward landmark status
The Eastsider LA: Silver Lake Tokio Florist Building to Become Boutique Hotel
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