For 100 years, Abernethy & Spencer Greenhouse & Garden Center’s spring opening has ushered in the season. This year, however, the opening represents a fresh start for its new owners, too.
Bentley “E.B.” Gregg and his son, G. Holmes Gregg, originally opened the nursery in 1925 under the name Hill Top Plant Gardens. Between 1974 and 1997 — when David Lohmann purchased it and renamed it Abernethy & Spencer — it changed hands several times.
Left to right: Jim Knowles, Autumn Knowles, Hillary Pennington, Jacob Baker, and Matt Lamberski (Photo courtesy Abernethy & Spencer)
Then in 2024, Jim and Autumn Knowles, Jacob Baker, Hillary Pennington, and Matt Lamberski — five friends who live in Loudoun County — decided to buy the Purcellville property. The group came from different professional backgrounds, but they were all focused on preserving a piece of history while cultivating a new career path for themselves.
Pivoting to Plants
Baker worked in home technology. Jim Knowles, a plant enthusiast since age 12 and an Abernethy customer for 25 years, has a health care background. His wife, Autumn, ran a farm and was also an avid gardener. Lamberski owned an estate garden maintenance business.
Pennington, Baker’s wife, was a funeral director for 20 years, most recently at Adams-Green Funeral Home in Herndon. She first learned about that line of work at a high school career day. “I came home and told my parents that’s what I wanted to do for a living,” she says. “I just thought it was interesting and fascinating.”
She attended mortuary school in Arizona and then worked in North Carolina before moving to Northern Virginia in 2011. Her work has included transporting and embalming bodies, helping families make arrangements, and overseeing funeral services. “It was a very rewarding job,” Pennington says.
But one night in 2024 when the friend group was hanging out, Jim shared that Lohmann had offered to sell him Abernethy & Spencer.
“They were [all] like, ‘We’d change our careers to do that. That sounds like a better quality of life,’” Jim says.
For Pennington, it was a chance to turn over a new leaf and shift from a job focused on death to one focused on life.
“The funeral industry can be very stressful, and I just felt like I had done everything that I wanted to do” in it, she says. “I listened to all the families that I had waited on for years telling me to never wait to take that vacation or never wait to take an opportunity … and I took the advice.”
She has no regrets. “It’s just a happy place to come to,” Pennington says. “I will say people here at the nursery are happier to see me.”
The group closed on the property on March 1, 2024 — the opening day of the season. The transition has had its challenges, but fundamentally, business ownership comes down to basic economic principles, no matter the industry, Knowles says.
“There’s a certain formula to make businesses work, and it’s no different in the nursery,” he says. “Everything applies the same: managing labor costs, controlling your inventory, all that kind of stuff.”
Everyone fell into their roles at the nursery organically, which also helped. Pennington says she and Baker apply their management expertise to the new gig, leaving the plant prowess to the Knoewleses. Lamberski handles customer deliveries and oversees pest management. “You find Jake and I a little more in the background, just kind of keeping everything glued together,” Pennington says.
That balance is key, adds Jim. “I don’t think either one of us could do it without the other couple there,” he says. “It’s a really nice symbiotic type of relationship because everybody has a role, and we all know what it is.”
Photo by Emily Campos
Planting Ideas for Growth
Six months after buying Abernethy & Spencer, the friends renovated the property with the goal of making it a destination. They wanted to create a place where neighbors could come and spend time, not just buy a plant and leave.
The Conservatory got the first fixes. A restored historical greenhouse, it was originally located at an estate in The Plains. It was moved to the nursery in the 1950s and was used to grow plants and house the cashiers.
Now, the building is a gift and garden shop with a library, tables, and chairs. Customers can sit or browse while they enjoy coffee or tea from Lola’s Coffee Cart, a new addition that’s perched just outside the building. It’s named after Lola the cockatoo, one of five rescued birds the team inherited with the property. The cart also serves juice, pastries, and signature drinks named after the other four birds: parakeets Juliet, Maxie, Sunshine, and Norman.
“The biggest draw and attraction would be the Conservatory here,” Pennington says. “It’s a beautiful space.”
Another new area is the Glassroom, which is available to rent for parties or meetings. It holds 50 to 75 people and has a large screen for presentations.
Photo by Emily Campos
“It’s actually a greenhouse from Blue Mount Nursery” in Ashburn, Pennington says. “When they closed last year, we purchased their greenhouse and brought it here. Part of it became our tropical plant house, and the rest became the Glassroom. That greenhouse was probably destined for the trash, but we were able to give it another life.”
It’s also where Autumn Knowles, a self-taught gardener, leads workshops for gardeners of all ages and skill levels. Past classes have included a kids’ workshop where children rolled clay balls full of native wildflower seeds to take home. During Table Topiary 101, participants potted a rosemary or myrtle plant and learned how to maintain its shape.
“We try to make sure each class or workshop has some sort of hands-on element,” Autumn says. “People can get their hands in whatever the topic is. I think that’s the best way to learn anything.”
Overall, the 9-acre property is now home to eight greenhouses. One is dedicated to cactus plants, another to geraniums, and another to annual flowers, herbs, and vegetables. The nursery also has 12 perennial houses, six native perennial houses, 100 varieties of trees, 200 varieties of shrubs, and a patio with outdoor furniture for sale.
Top-selling plants are native trees, shrubs, and perennials, such as bluebells and asters, according to Autumn. But “we see quite a few of our more unique selections going out in customers’ carts,” she says. “We have a big selection of heirloom scented geraniums and Martha Washington geraniums, which you don’t see very often anymore.”
Abernethy also has landscape designers available to assist with customer questions. “We do that almost on a daily basis,” Baker says.
Photo by Emily Campos
Next Steps
Although they are focused on the future, the new owners want to retain some of the nursery’s past allure as well.
“There is a quirkiness that Abernethy has had,” Jim says. “Nothing was so sanitized that you walk in and everything’s right where it needed to be. People liked the little bit of a hunt. It was a little bit of an adventure.”
The group wants to preserve that — but with their own twists. “We did put a much better organization overlay on top of it,” Jim says. “We need it to be shoppable, [but] … hopefully, people will realize this isn’t just a transactional retail space. This is someplace where I can come with my kids, my dog, take a walk, get a coffee, see some cool trees or plants I haven’t seen before, maybe put one in the yard when we get home.”
To that end, the team started adding a walking trail with native plants in the back of the property last fall. “Eventually, it will be about a half-mile loop down by a really beautiful creek,” Autumn says.
The friends are also prepping a property in Clarke County to grow more inventory.
“This is 100 years of Loudoun history that we have inherited here, and that’s important as data centers take over farms [and] nurseries,” Jim says. Most recently, in neighboring Prince William County, Black Chamber Group, a data center developer, bought South Riding Nurseries in Bristow and Merrifield Garden Center’s Gainesville location. Both closed in 2025.
“It’s nice to have a touchstone back to this county 100 years ago, when it was more agricultural based,” Jim adds. “Having Abernethy still there is a part of that.”
Feature image by Emily Campos
This story originally ran in our May 2026 issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
Comments are closed.