Hallandale Beach, Florida · Family owned since 1983
A Family-Owned Lighting Showroom in Hallandale Beach Since 1983
Three generations of one family, one showroom, and forty-odd years of getting lighting packages onto job sites in South Florida.
Not every line we carry is limited to South Florida. See the 103 lines we ship anywhere in the United States.
Our story
Started in 1983. Still the same family.
Henry Blum started Hold the Spec in 1983 with his father, Gilbert, and Henry has been the one running it from that first day to this one. Gilbert T. Blum had come home from the Second World War, where he served as an Army Ranger with the 2nd Ranger Battalion and spent part of the war as a prisoner. In business he earned the nickname “Give-Away-Gil” the hard way, by pricing sharp and standing behind what he sold. He passed away some years ago. The way he quoted a job is still the way the place quotes one. Henry owns the company today with co-owner Raya Blum, out of the same Hallandale Beach showroom and warehouse.
What began as a lighting store for homeowners grew, project by project, into a contract supplier. Restaurants, hotels, condo towers, houses of worship and municipal buildings across South Florida were lit with fixtures that came off our floor — and the contractors who bought them kept coming back with bigger drawings.
That is the business now: commercial and contract lighting supply, backed by a showroom you can actually walk into and a family that answers the phone.
The people
Who you will actually deal with
Hold the Spec is small enough that the person who answers the phone is the person who works your job. There is no call centre and no ticket queue.
Henry Blum, President
President since 1983, and the only one the company has ever had. Henry is the one who took a retail lighting store and turned it into a contract supplier that can price a whole building, and after four decades he is still reachable on the showroom line.
Raya Blum, co-owner and showroom
Co-owner alongside Henry, and the person who looks after everyone who walks through the showroom door. Raya is genuinely good with people. She will work through designer lighting for any room in a house — chandeliers and dining pendants, kitchen and island lighting, bath and vanity, bedroom and living room, outdoor and landscape — until the room is right rather than just lit. If you are choosing between two finishes and cannot picture either, she is who you want.
The project desk
Takeoffs, submittals, lead times and release schedules. If you have sent drawings, this is who reads them. Reach it through the project quote form or by calling the showroom.
The showroom floor
Hundreds of fixtures lit and hanging, which beats any photograph when you are judging how warm a lamp really reads. Open to trade and public alike. Bring in the fixture that failed and we will identify it. Directions and hours are on the contact page.
Between the four of those you get an answer the same day, in English, Espanol, Russian or Hebrew.
Authorized lines
What being an authorized dealer actually means
It is a phrase every lighting site uses and almost none explain. Here is the difference it makes on a real job.
An authorized dealer buys from the manufacturer, not from a liquidator or a grey-market reseller. That has four practical consequences. The manufacturer warranty is honoured, because the serial number traces back to an authorized purchase. The catalogue is current, so the finish you specify is a finish still in production rather than one discontinued two seasons ago. Factory support is available, which matters the day a driver fails on a fixture installed eighteen months earlier. And the manufacturer rep for the territory will take the call, which is how a special finish, a custom length or an expedited release actually happens.
Ask me who the authorized dealer is for your area. You can browse every one of them in the lighting manufacturer index, which lists who owns each brand today, which have merged or been rebranded, and where their own rep locator is. If you would rather start from the fixture than the brand, the lighting by category hub breaks the same catalogue down by chandeliers, recessed, landscape, ceiling fans and twenty more.
The index is not a sales page. It exists because the lighting industry consolidates constantly, and a specifier who writes a brand that no longer exists loses a week finding out.
Coverage
Where we deliver
South Florida from the shelf. The rest of the country through the manufacturer rep network.
The showroom sits on the Broward and Miami-Dade county line, which puts most of the tri-county area inside an easy delivery radius. We supply jobs across Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, including Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Aventura, Sunny Isles Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, Pembroke Pines, Boca Raton and the surrounding cities. Local stock and staging mean a phased job can take delivery floor by floor instead of all at once.
Outside the tri-county area we ship nationally, and where a line is sold through a territory rep we will tell you who that rep is rather than pretend otherwise. The find a rep tool answers that question for any brand in any US state, and every brand page carries the manufacturer own locator where one exists.
What we do
Why contractors buy through us
Plenty of places will sell you a fixture. Fewer will price a whole package, chase the factory when a date slips and still be here when a lamp fails in year three.
One order, the whole package
Decorative, recessed, linear, exterior and controls on a single purchase order, with one submittal set and one point of contact.
We know what is actually available
Ownership and part numbers in this industry change constantly. We track it — see our manufacturer index — so a discontinued line does not stall your job.
Local stock and staging
A warehouse in Hallandale Beach means pickup today, delivery this week and product held until the site is ready for it.
Contract pricing, not list
Trade accounts with terms on approval, priced for people buying by the job rather than by the fixture.
You can see it before you spec it
A working showroom. Bring the client, look at the finish under real light, then commit.
Nobody hides behind a form
Call 786-395-1222 during business hours and you get a person who can look up your job.
Selected work
Some of what we have lit
Hospitality, landmark restaurants, multifamily, retail, houses of worship and private residences — across South Florida and beyond. Among them: Joe’s Stone Crab, Paris 6 and Whale Harbor.
Hospitality and restaurants
Dining rooms, bars and lobbies where the lighting is part of the room, not an afterthought.
Multifamily and condo
Corridors, amenity decks, lobbies and unit packages, delivered floor by floor.
Landscape and site
Path, uplight, hardscape and facade lighting for grounds, entries and amenity areas.
Track record
Four decades, and what people say about them
Houzz has given Hold the Spec its Best of Houzz service award twice, in 2020 and again in 2023. Both are voted by the clients who actually used the showroom, which is the only kind of award worth listing.
We also publish our working tools rather than keeping them behind a trade login. The free lighting tools page carries the recessed layout spacer, the incandescent to halogen to LED wattage converter, the energy cost calculator, colour temperature and beam angle visualisers, chandelier sizing, voltage drop, LED tape planning, a dimmer compatibility matrix and a fixture schedule builder that hands its output straight to the quote form. Use them whether or not you buy from us.
What the full contract offer covers, step by step from takeoff to punch list, is set out on the project services page.
What people say
4.9 ★ across 138 Google reviews
Forty years of walk-ins, contractors and repeat customers. Read them on Google →
Where I work
South Florida
Based in South Florida, working with architects, engineers and contractors nationwide. In-store pickup and local delivery, wheelchair accessible, and staff who speak English, Español, Russian and Hebrew.
| Monday — Friday | 9:00 am — 5:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Saturday | Closed |
| Sunday | Closed |
Related: Lunch and learn sessions · The Controls Brief · Tour a lighting factory in Miami
Working on something?
Send the drawings or the fixture schedule and we will come back with a line-by-line price and current lead times — usually within one business day.