SHELBYVILLE - Better late than never.

And while it did take 150 years for the sumptuous pre-Civil War Italianate mansion at 318 W. Main St. to find its ideal role in life, it's good to know the place has finally come down where it's meant to be.

Today, the address is called "Late Bloomer on Main" and houses a vast gift shop, finely crafted by owner Mary Lockart for feminine sensibilities. Out in the backyard, a custom-built new building holds a full-service flower shop, offering arrangements for births and deaths and all significant life events in between.

Visitors entering the main house are engulfed in a flood of gifts, ranging from candles to jewelry to pictures to silk floral arrangements cascading artfully over every surface. It's not so much a store, but more of an Aladdin's Cave with tasteful furnishings that also serves customers biscotti and coffees with names such as "snicker dandy decaf" and "raspberry hazelnut"

Shoppers find all this sweet seduction perfectly irresistible. "I love it because of the unique gift ideas and because they also give you a lot of good decorating advice," said Jamie Heiserman, 32, clutching a cup of iced tea she snagged at the granite counter serving area in what was once a formal parlor.

"And this place," she adds, glancing around under the 12-foot ceilings. "It's a nice backdrop for everything."

Heiserman lives just outside Shelbyville and can't resist embracing the Late Bloomer atmosphere "at least a couple of times a month." Visitors from as far as Skokie and Chicago also have signed the guestbook, and they have the same reaction when they walk in: "Which is 'Whoa,' " says Cheryl Schrock, who works there and specializes in laying out the gift displays.

Schrock says people are so smitten with the place, she can even sell stuff to the sales reps who come in to sell stuff to the business. "Everybody likes it here," she adds.

Defining just why Late Bloomer works so well isn't easy. Perhaps it's just that the 3,900-square-foot brick house was built to impress and is the ideal setting to show off beautiful things. Over the years, however, people haven't always been so sensitive to its aesthetic attributes.

Built as a private home for a wealthy merchant in 1858, it had become a doctor's home and surgery in the 1930s and, 29 years ago, began a career in banking. The bank tenants generally were kind to the fabric of the old place, but it must have felt a bit like opening a money-changer's branch office in a cathedral.

Lockart, who once worked there as a teller, looked beyond grubby lucre and let the old place invest heavily in her heart. She longed to be the owner, always believing she could do something sympathetic with it, and bided her time.

In 2006, after the bank moved out and while Lockhart was selling real estate, 318 W. Main St. went on the market, and the former teller got the chance to put her money where her heart was.

Her 81-year-old father, Frank Schafer, along with her mom, Layne, and her husband, Bill, were part of a family team who rolled up their sleeves to help with the restoration work. They proceeded carefully, safeguarding lots of classic details such as acid-etched glass panels framing the giant front door and elaborate pediments and woodwork that have the effect of turning every interior doorway into a dramatic stage entrance.

The cavernous downstairs main hallway even has an original papier mache frieze that highlights the walls and ceiling. The effect is kind of like ruffled silk and is as unusual and unexpected as it is beautiful. With all the gift goodies glittering from every corner and set off by polished heart pine floors that glow in the soft interior light, the effect on the senses is of an overwhelming richness.

Lockart, who gets a little embarrassed by the success of what she's wrought, says it wasn't so much planned as evolved over time. The upstairs is now let to Studio 21 Photography (they produced a cool brochure for Late Bloomer), and Lockart opened her downstairs store in November 2006. Working with a team of friends who staff the place as needed and offer advice on what to stock, the Late Bloomer's business model continues to blossom.

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," says Lockart, describing her retail philosophy. "And I'm very grateful that what I did happened at the right time and just works so well here."

Life isn't all hearts and flowers, of course, and no one knows that better than flower designer Janet Gill, who makes the bouquets, arrangements and wreaths out back in the new building. She's a seasoned professional, with 25 years in the business of creating statements with petals, but says the magnitude of some strangers' tragedies allows no room for emotional distance.

"The death of a baby absolutely tears you apart," she says simply. "We've had several for some reason this year, and you just grab your box of Kleenex and go on with it. You must always do your best."

Dealing with emotions such as that exacts a toll but, in the century-and-a-half old home just across the way, there is usually a bunch of sympathetic women well-practiced in the gentle art of spreading comfort. "And, yes, it does end up getting kind of teary around here from time to time," says Lockart. "It's a girl thing."

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