The lawn is emerald. Dogwood's in, early bloom. Beyond the clipped grass a tangled grove of 100-year old trees shadows a stream that runs into the salt-sweet marsh. With a bit of soggy self- applause, a pair of mallards get airborne and go arrowing southward into the vaulted clouds of the spring sky. You follow their line of flight towards Reynolds Channel, the distant docks of Long Beach and beyond them the Atlantic Ocean, "Not bad;' says Chris Stefan, standing on the arch of a little footbridge that spans his mallards' home-sweet-creek. He takes an ever-present cigar out of his mouth and gestures expansively, lovingly back at his brick colonial home on its six secluded acres complete with terraced pool and discretely formal gardens. His wave dislodges a few dogwood petals.

No, not bad at all. A nice little spot in Lawrence, Long Island for Chris, master-maven florist and decorator for every wedding, bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah of note for miles around. 'About 90 percent of my business is Jewish," says the Greek Orthodox Chris who liberally sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms, "and I'm part of their world, but I'm not even Jewish."

He's a tough-talking romantic with a heart as tender as feta cheese, but you wouldn't want to mess with this solid, silk-shirted mensch who puts in 15-hours days at Flowers by Chris, seven days a week. "The only reason I don't work eight days," he says, "is because there are only seven days in a week." He manhandles crews of 50 and 60 on an average weekend for some 50 "affairs," as they're known around here, and acts the priest, rabbi, decorator, confessor and all around hand- holder for over 1,000 clients who, as Chris says, "are under a lot of tension, especially when it's a wedding and two Families are involved. As one of my Orthodox Jewish

• friends says, a bar mitzvah is always better than a wedding because you take the chussen (groom) home with you!"

We're in the heart of the "five towns," folks: Lawrence, Cedarhurst, etc. It's a sort of vast Jewish Windsor Park where the phrase "upwardly mobile" merely connotes stock shares of the same name, and every mother's son worth his Kosher salt is a lawyer, doctor, dentist or, at least, a thriving corporate commando. For denizens of these tudor, colonial, French provincial, half-timbered, Dutch-loured, tennis-courted and swimming- pooled homes nestled on their one, two and five-acre plots, the name of Chris Sfefan is legend and his fans/friends are legion.

How did a nice Greek Orthodox guy get into this floral five-towns fix where every day's a simcha for someone else? "Simple," says the irrepressible Chris. "I love flowers and I love people, especially the Orthodox Jewish folks who were the first ones to support me. I was touched by them when I first came to Lawrence 32 years ago, and I grew with them:'

In a very real way, his story is one of Jack and the Orthodox beanstalk. The man who proudly proclaims himself -The youngest/ oldest flower business veteran in the New York area" fell in love with the profession at the tender age of seven when lie went to work for a florist cousin in Manhattan. There followed a series of jobs with some of the famed names in the business: Rex Richards, Goldfarb's, Wadley & Smythe. With them, Chris developed a green thumb, a decorator's eye and, by the time he was in charge of the flower department of the Hotel Pierre, a strong disinclination to work for anyone else.

His approach, says Chris, is "strictly realistic. No rose colored glasses, no negative thinking. I live with my clients, guide them, help them face the facts — especially when they get overextended. I'm straight with them, the way they've been with me. Especially the Orthodox who literally showed me the way of giving, showed me how we truly need one another to survive."

But don't offend the innate gentility of this friendly florist who can spot a phony faster than you can say "simcha."

"I can't stomach fake people or dyed flowers, or using ketchup on a good piece of beef," says Chris.

Through the years, his realism, his passion for success and compassion for his fellows has created a lot of dancing in the Orthodox aisles among his friends in the five towns, especially at the South Shore Yeshiva which Chris fondly calls "my baby," and whose Rabbi Kamenetzky "is one of my dearest friends from the day we met 32 years ago." Among the many honors tendered Chris Stefan by the Jewish community, he may be proudest of the time seven years ago when he received from South Shore Yeshiva their accolade LIFE (Long Island Federation of Education).

At that time, it seems, Chris Stefan's favorite Yeshiva was in deep trouble. "Those people needed money in so many ways. But they were like 100 companies; when you put them all together they still had nothing. Boy, did they need a fundraiser!"

Enter Lochinvar Stefan. "I brought my friend Rabbi Kamenetzky all he needed," Chris recalls, "and most of it was Gentile money:. How did Chris accomplish this loaves¬and-fishes hat trick? "Very simple. I asked my friends to come forward and they did."

In three decades of dealing with the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform com¬munities of Long Island, dueling with caterers and damping family flames that could melt steel magnolias, Chris Stefan has found himself an unexpected though not unwilling mediator. "What a crazy community mix." says Dr. Stefan, "I respond to the family ethics of the Orthodox, but I don't hold with all their beliefs, such as the feeling that a Reform Jew is not really a Jew. I say, 'Accept me for what I am, and I'll return the compli¬ment. A consummation devoutly to be wished, but more honored in the breach than the observance by some of Chris Stefan's pals who, as he ruefully reports, "can go at it hammer and tongs among themselves. If people cared more about flowers and flexibility, and less about being zealots," he sighs, "my 'affairs' would be more peaceful."

But he should worry. Much of his real joy, he says, comes from seeing family trees sprout. "I'm involved with three generations in these townships, men whose bar mitzvahs I've decorated, then their weddings, and now the bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs of their sons and daughters. It's thrilling to me, beautiful, My favorite clients are also my dear friends. Hairnisha people — plain, true, gentle 7people."

The gruff and glorious Stefan style has endeared him not only to the South Shore Yeshiva but to Jewish groups and commentators with a far broader reach. In 1983, for example, he was the principal guest, and the only Gentile ever, to appear on the National Jewish TV Network in the Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis show "Hineni," which airs in over 112 cities. Fifty years of dealing with flowers, families and their occasional frenzies obviously prepared him well since he went on the air cold — no rehearsal and no cue cards — for his interview with the glamorous Esther. Some of their exchanges from that program are memorable:

Esther: "What's this love affair between you and the Jewish people?"

Chris: "I've spent my life with them and I did very well. I guess after a while you become a little bit Jewish."

Esther: "Your Yiddish accent is so good, I thought you were Jewish!"

Chris: 'Well, when you do so many simchas, it just grows on you."

Esther: "You've said there's only one thing you can take with you, and that's your good name. In that you actually echoed our Hebrew proverb that says: "It's better to have a good name than precious oil," And so you are a true man of the proverbs, devoted to helping others."

Chris: 'Without a good name, without trust, a man is nothing. When people come to me it's with a sense of trust, from flowers to emotions. That's a privilege I don't abuse. I'm an outgoing guy. I try to take care of the other person the way I'd want him to care for me.'

Esther: "How do you deal with race prejudice?"

Chris: "When I hear bigots, anti-Semites, I take time out. I feel I owe it to them to show them the way. I don't blame them; I blame their parents, those who never tried to teach them. If more of us took that time, gave in guidance as well as in money, it would be so much easier for all races to live in peace."

Esther: "There's generosity of spirit." writer who helped focus my thoughts, since I myself had nothing when I started. He said, "Thank G-d I was born poor in order to inherit the luxury of giving"

Not long after this stint on nationwide TV, Chris received one of the coveted Shofar, or Brotherhood, Awards from the National Council of Young Israel at their Seventy-First Anniversary Banquet in New York. As Chris and his wife Vicki took the stage, Chris was recognized once more for his contributions to Zionist causes and major medical institutions and, of course, regional groups like his beloved South Shore Yeshiva which comprised for the hosts that evening "an example of all that is best in American society."

Said Chris from the podium: "Thank G-d my dear wife and children are here with me in this simcha to hear what other people say. Maybe now they'll respect me a bit more and I too will get my share of nuchas!"

Best of all that night was Chris Stefan's remembered parable told to him by a Rabbi friend: "There are two great seas in the Holy Land, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Galilee is born of mountain waters and in turn feeds the Jordan that nourishes the fields, thus giving back as much as it takes. The Dead Sea receives only, and gives back nothing to the land. I want to be alive and sharing like the Sea of Galilee, not grasping and ungiving like the Dead Sea."

Chris Stefan's family life is rich with proof of that ideal. Like the high mountain waters above the Galilee, of course, there was some early turbulence. "When we first met," Victoria Stefan remembers, "we were both working for the same New York concern. Chris drove a truck; I worked in the office. He was wild. A wild guy!' The parents of the beautiful well-bred Vicki were dead against the wedding. But.she eventually married her wild guy and, says Vicki, it's been roses all the way. They have three handsome children: their girl Danae, who is a gifted designer and decorator; Jimmy, who has joined Chris in the business; and Steve.

How about the future? "My last plateau," says Chris, "will be to open up a Floral School. I never needed one myself, but I've always dreamed of founding a really great institute for our business."

What are his chances? "Well, I know I'll have a lot of spiritual help. After all, some of my best friends are Rabbis."

Mazel Tov, Chris Stefan!

By Frank Rohr