Blue Rose Polish Pottery Offers a Collection of Authentic Polish Dishwater and Decor
By Riley Brodie
AC&T Editor
Rock Hill is home to one of the most esteemed Polish pottery businesses in America – and most people probably completely miss it when driving down Cherry Rd.
Blue Rose Pottery, is located at 1549 Cherry Rd., Rock Hill, directly across from Cherry Park.
The building may seem unassuming, but the minute you walk in, you are met with an array of beautiful Polish pottery designs.
The Blue Rose Polish Pottery website documents a brief history of the art of Polish pottery. Polish Pottery dates back to the 16th century, with the oldest pieces having been found in Silesia.
They frequently decorated pottery with a “folk art stamping technique using potatoes.” However, today, the pieces are decorated with small sponges.
The colors of peacock feathers have consistently served as a significant inspiration for designs throughout art history.
Blue Rose Polish Pottery sells pieces from “five of the largest” factories. The current factories include “Zaklady, Vena, Ceramika, Manufaktura, and WR Unikat.” With this in mind, the company offers a diverse range of products and designs.
This year, the previous owners, Diane and Phil Merwin, passed the company down to Caitlyn and Grayson Bagwell.
Diane Merwin took the time to discuss her experiences with and motives for the company.
Prior to starting up the company, Merwin worked in women’s clothing stores for many years. After retiring from retail, she evaluated what her next best step would be.
“My daughter-in-law presented the idea of a Polish pottery business to me. She reminded me of my love of Polish pottery and how difficult it was to find,” Merwin said.
Merwin had previously travelled around the world, collecting pottery in various locations.
“The main reason for collecting pottery was that it was functional. It was a beautiful art, but you could put it in a dishwasher, oven, microwave, freezer. The prices at that time were fantastic. That’s why I started it 20 years ago, because it was so functional and affordable,” Merwin said.
Phill Merwin has also played a large role in the company’s success.
“My husband’s role was the general manager. He managed everything, all the work processes. I had a great background in sales and marketing, while he had great experiences in planning, organization, efficiency, and profit, so the combination of the two skill sets was perfect,” Merwin said.
“I started 20 years ago in my garage. He’s been working with me 16 out of the 20 years,” she continued.
Despite external challenges, the company has withstood the test of time.
“COVID was the most dramatic change in our business. We initially had a retail store and a warehouse. We shut the retail store down because of COVID. However, our internet business doubled.”
“Due to the impact of the virus and the war on Ukraine, price[s] went up from 20% to 100% so that made us re-engineer how we managed things,” Merwin said.
Caitlyn Bagwell also shared her experiences and aspirations for Blue Rose Polish Pottery.
“Phil and Diane are actually my parents’ neighbors, but my mom [had] been a customer of Diane’s prior to them being neighbors. My husband Grayson works for rugs.com, and he basically wanted to have his own e-commerce business, so when the opportunity presented itself, we leap,” Bagwell said.
With this being said, Bagwell previously had a long-term career as a teacher.
“I taught high school math for 17 years and completely saw myself doing that until I retired, so it definitely took a bit of convincing to take over Blue Rose Pottery. I’ll always be a strong supporter of public education, but to have this opportunity for our family was something we couldn’t pass up at this point. With this will come more flexibility for our family, more opportunity, and more learning experiences,” Bagwell said.
Blue Rose Polish Pottery will continue to be a family-owned and operated business with its new owners.
“Our daughter was here when we got a shipment. She unpacked pallets of pottery and she loved it. She did great! They were told it’s going to be a family business, and they are absolutely gonna help.”
The Bagwells also intend to grow the business.
“So right now we’re looking at adding additional marketplaces online. We currently sell on Amazon, Target, Walmart, and eBay. We’re additionally looking to add Etsy in the mix very
soon in the future. Other than that, we are also looking to expand to different kinds of products, such as Turkish pottery or Moroccan pottery.”
Diane Merwin has shared her excitement and satisfaction about this new shift in Blue Rose Polish Pottery.
“We have an Amazon brand registry, so there were people, called Amazon aggregators, who were talking to us. They were going to move the business, just take the pottery and incorporate it into other Amazon businesses. This meant my employees wouldn’t have jobs anymore, and I didn’t know what they were going to do with Blue Rose Pottery,” Merwin said.
“We talked to Caitlyn and Phil for over two years about the possibility of them taking over. It just became the right thing for me and my husband and them. It just became a good choice.”
The business transfer seemed to have fallen perfectly into place.
“Our employees keep their jobs and the Bagwells want to build up the brand Blue Rose Pottery. That makes me happy. They also have competency levels that were everything I could hope for.”
Blue Rose Polish Pottery is open from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For any inquiries, please call 866-831-8066.
