When it comes time to decorate the Capital Hotel’s Christmas Tree in Little Rock, management brings in the A team: Tipton & Hurst, a family-owned floral design and gift business in Arkansas that was founded in 1886. “As long as there has been a decorated tree in the lobby, Tipton & Hurst has been involved,” says Micah Vargas, the marketing coordinator at the Capital—and this year will mark the forty-second time they’ve come in to work their magic.
“It’s a holiday tradition for our company, and we love it,” says Stacy Hurst, who owns Tipton & Hurst with her husband, Howard. “Our aesthetic is in keeping with the Capital’s historic nature: classic gold and red.” The canvas is a nearly thirty-foot-tall fir flown in from Oregon. Once the tree is installed in the lobby’s atrium, towering up towards the colorful stained-glass skylight, the Tipton & Hurst team unpacks boxes of lights and special ornaments they keep in storage, including glass-blown ones shaped like the hotel, red baubles, and Hurst’s favorite touch, luscious spools of burgundy velvet ribbon, one of which crowns the tree. Since the tree’s height requires machinery to reach the upper boughs, they tackle the tree in sections, completing both lights and ornaments simultaneously.
The process takes four days, some 10,000 lights, and 2,000 ornaments, and results in a loaded tree that weighs around 2,500 pounds. When it’s ready, the Capital—which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2026—invites the whole town for the lighting, and the tree stays up the rest of the year. “Everyone is welcome. I think Christmas at the Capital Hotel is the most magical thing that we do for the community all year,” says Vargas. “Thousands of people come to see the decorations and take pictures with the tree—it’s such a spectacle.”
Inspired by lessons she’s learned over the decades Tipton & Hurst has trimmed the Capital tree, here are Hurst’s five best tips for decorating your own at home…