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Expert Advice: Freewheeling and Dealing

Kenneth R. Wilson
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Expert Advice: Freewheeling and Dealing
Antique auctions attract unique characters. Eccentrics, hoarders, and quirky dealers have turned reality shows such as Pawn Stars and American Pickers into hits. So when Discovery Channel launched its own auction series, Bidder Rivals, casting took top priority. The channel found its Ty Pennington in Paul Brown, owner of Gallery 63 in Sandy Springs—who has the same rugged good looks and enthusiasm for his trade.
 
Brown’s parents own the famously outlandish Red Baron Antiques, another Sandy Springs auction house known for regularly selling extravagant lots such as a flying car, the Babe Ruth contract rumored to have started the “Curse of the Bambino,” a mechanical E.T. from the movie, and entire interiors of European churches and pubs. Brown himself garnered national headlines in 2007 when he nearly auctioned off a small collection of Martin Luther King Jr.’s personal papers, offered by an old MLK associate at WAOK radio. King’s heirs halted the sale at the last moment.
 
Television suits Brown’s personality. He is charismatic, handsome, and talkative—if a bit spastic as he leaps through the gallery, oblivious to its fragile inventory. “I operate on volume,” he explains in a single breath. “I’m not gonna make much on any individual piece, but I am gonna sell a lot of individual pieces.” Eyes darting around the room, he points to a punch bowl and adds, “I don’t have to wait until someone pays me $500 for that. I’ll sell it for $50, make $25, and get on to the next item.”
 
The show, scheduled to debut this month, highlights unique items—such as episode one’s nineteenth-century vampire-slaying kit—and the intriguing sellers, buyers, and experts who surround them.
 
Before a monthly sale, every inch of gallery space is covered with paintings, jewelry, crystal, porcelain, relics, mirrors, and rugs. Chandeliers and fixtures hang from a lighting truss suitable for a Rolling Stones world tour—which is appropriate considering one of the band’s own snooker tables sits underneath, the iconic tongue and lip logo in Vegas-style neon on the wall above.
 
Like a Vegas casino, Gallery 63 lacks windows but keeps ample supplies of food and booze on hand, gratis for buyers. Appropriately, the environment is equally as stimulating and terrifying to a newbie.
 
Instinct says to flee the chaos before blowing the 401(k) by accident, but no worries. Although the room is loud and customers signal significant investments with the slightest of twitches, the auctioneer recognizes an intentional bid. The fear of inadvertently buying a African chieftain’s priceless throne eventually subsides, and that’s when the magic starts. The auctioneer’s rhythmic cadence changes to a hum and fades into background noise for intelligible conversation. After obtaining a bidder number from the front desk, the rube goes from terror to exhilaration with the first wave of the placard. The only challenge is deciding when to stop bidding on that row of Olympic stadium seats from Turner Field. Gallery 63, 4577 Roswell Road, 404-252-2555, gallery63.net

This article originally appeared in our September 2010 issue.

Made in Atlanta: Shiner

Jackson Reeves
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Made in Atlanta: Shiner

Light fixtures made from corrugated cardboard, birch sconces made of lumber scraps, a curved desk of black walnut remnants, and a chair with elliptical rockers inspired by a wrecked motorcycle wheel comprise Joe Manus’s modern-cum-rustic furniture collection. The East Point resident’s line showcases his love of what he calls “bastard materials”—in other words, trash—giving his pieces idiosyncrasies and environmental appeal.

This new brand grew out of a construction and fabrication company called Art Through Labor, which Manus started in 2001. The firm designed and built nightclubs, restaurants, boutiques, homes, and other commercial spaces, including Opera nightclub, Vinnie’s Styles in Little Five, and Virginia-Highland’s Belly General Store. During the aughts, the company also designed a handful of furniture pieces to populate its buildings—a barstool here, a bench there.

When the real estate bubble burst and construction projects dried up, Manus changed gears and turned furnishings into his bread and butter. Rechristened Shiner in January of this year, the enterprise has become both a critical and commercial success. Manus won Best of Show at Peachtree Center’s AmericasMart that month, leading to shows in New York and High Point, North Carolina. Kudzu Antiques (kudzuantiques.com) and Design Lighting Group (dlightinggroup.com) carry his line in Atlanta, but retailers all the way to Italy currently sell Shiner.

Manus gets all of his materials for free—by the truckload. The stacks of cardboard and piles of plywood in his warehouse are the refuse of other companies. “It’s easy to make a beautiful lampshade out of silk,” Manus explains. “If I do a lampshade out of corrugated cardboard, to me, it’s a higher level of design.” A pile of trash can provide some of his best inspiration.

Coming to design from a construction background, Manus tends toward bold forms and plenty of attitude. His website uses adjectives such as hip, muscular, sexy, clever, and dark.

The brand has already sold 5,000 units, and Manus has 200 prototypes in development—including floatable outdoor furniture made of Styrofoam, and seating fashioned from compressed paper pulp. Yet with all his initial success, Manus still worries about the future, which explains the new brand’s brazen moniker. “If I was going down, I was going down fighting and following my passion,” he says. “I’m still waiting for the sucker punch.” shinerinternational.com

This article originally appeared in our August 2010 issue.

Expert Advice: Custom Design in Cyberspace

Betsy Riley
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Expert Advice: Custom Design in Cyberspace

You don’t have to be an interior designer to enjoy decorating, any more than you have to be a fashion designer to appreciate clothing. But everyone can benefit from a little expert direction. The new website FoundMarket.com provides just enough professional guidance to help you create your own dream home.

Launched last month, Found Market is the brainchild of well-known Atlanta designer Scott Laslie and Alex Guerrero, former merchandising exec with Dockers and the North Face. Part Facebook, part 1stDibs, part Decor8, this online design service is a forum where you can chat with your designer, get some affordable advice, discover distinctive products, and perhaps be inspired by like-minded amateur decorators.

“We wanted to provide a new way of accessing professional interior design advice without having to hire a full-time designer,” says Guerrero. “This is for people who love DIY projects, home magazines, and TV shows, but who need professional guidance to put it all together.”

New users complete an online profile outlining the scope of their proposed project. They also select chairs, sofas, art, and other home furnishings from an array of choices and pick their favorite colors. “That way, we can know that your style is, say, French Modern but you like folk art,” explains Laslie. There’s also room for uploading photographs, magazine clippings, and even video of existing spaces, furniture, and collections.

“We encourage people to use items they already have,” says Laslie, who advised one client to reinvent a vintage dresser with bamboo detailing by lacquering it dark brown and then nickel-plating the original hardware. Laslie helped another decorate her entire living room for less than $6,500. One savings was enlarging the client’s own photographs to use as artwork.

Once a client has completed the profile, he or she schedules a personal consultation with a Found Market designer—via web, telephone, or even Skype. Based on that interview and follow-up correspondence, Found Market prepares a hand-finished, custom design plan, including recommendations for fabric, furnishings, and accessories. A basic plan starts at $1,500, but pricing is quoted individually.

Each user has his or her own page, which allows interaction similar to Facebook. The site also has a companion design blog, which the founders hope will build an online community of people who are passionate about personalizing their living spaces. It’s an irony of the digital age that technology can help individuals make their homes more handcrafted, but that’s exactly the philosophy behind Found Market. In fact, its logo of a raised hand—inspired by Laslie’s own collection of hand sculptures—signifies the personal touch.

This article originally appeared in our August 2010 issue.

Lights, Camera, Crash

Amanda Heckert
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Lights, Camera, Crash

Knees bent, Ormewood resident Dan Bush cocks his sledgehammer like Casey at the bat. He and a few similarly armed friends eye their target: an eighty-year-old wall separating the kitchen from a pantry in the home Bush shares with his wife, Caroline.

“Wait on the camera,” says Josh Temple, licensed contractor and host of the DIY Network’s House Crashers. “Then I’m going to let you guys demo the f–k out of this.”

That word won’t make it on air, but the next moment will: Bush and company let loose on the wall like mad, hipster woodsmen, hacking it to bits as plaster settles like pollen on the dust-masked crew crowding the cramped space.

Ever since the Bushes moved into the slate-gray bungalow four years ago, “we’ve wanted to take a sledgehammer to the kitchen,” says Dan. Until now, the usually resourceful couple hadn’t tackled the dated (and today, they discover via Caroline’s shrieks, dead-rat-concealing) space.

The Bushes were approached by Temple while browsing at the Dump. The Crashers crew was on the lookout there for homeowners in need of help with a project, and the Bushes—unlike several other Dump customers that day—said yes immediately. But while they’re used to cameras (he’s a filmmaker who codirected 2007 Sundance success The Signal; she’s a wardrobe and prop stylist), they weren’t quite prepared for the gaggle of carpenters and designers, craftsmen and cameramen that arrived honking at the foot of their lawn this morning.

“I thought there would be more talking about what we would be doing, but no,” says Caroline as she waits for the dust to settle amid the tools and cords and appliances in the backyard. “It’s action!”

And it has to be. House Crashers—a newish spin-off of the Knoxville-based DIY Network’s already-successful Yard Crashers series—promises to conduct its duckling-to-swanathon in just three days. Each episode begins with an in-store “ambush” of unsuspecting shoppers. For the Atlanta project, local design/build company Clear Sky Homes kept everyone on task, and Lawrenceville’s Burns Century Interior Design created the “rustic modern” aesthetic desired by the couple. Stainless steel Whirlpool appliances, for instance, contrast with a large island in reclaimed barn wood by Southern Heritage Woodworks of Sylvester, Georgia. Textures range from slick, eco-friendly aggregate countertops to an industrial-looking metal ceiling.

But the best part? “The dishwasher,” says Caroline without hesitation. “I don’t have to do dishes anymore!”

This article originally appeared in our July 2010 issue.

Shotgun Chic

Lisa Mowry
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Shotgun Chic

Fifteen years ago, when Jeff Jones bought a 1930s Midtown house that had been destroyed by fire, the residential designer vowed to rebuild an even better one. “You always hate to lose an old house, but sometimes it’s an opportunity to redesign and do it right,” he says. Jones drew inspiration from a classically designed cottage in Inman Park, with symmetrical windows and a wide center hall providing an axis for the floor plan. After studying historic plans and experimenting with scale, he designed and built this deceivingly simple house with cedar shingles, four narrow columns, and a brick courtyard garden in front.

Although the updated, shotgun-inspired house won a local urban design award, Jones is almost more proud of a nearby resident’s comment. “He said this new house fits in the neighborhood better than a lot of the older houses,” recalls Jones. “So many of the older houses have been changed so that they’ve lost their charm.”

This inviting residence soon caught the eye of Joe McGinnis, who used to slow down whenever he was driving by so he could get a close look at his favorite house. When McGinnis spotted a “For Sale” sign in 2000, he slammed on the brakes and went right to Jones, even though the house was already under contract. Fortunately for McGinnis, the first buyer dropped out, so he purchased the home and moved in with his partner, Alan Frazier.

McGinnis was immediately as smitten with the character-rich interior as he had been with the exterior. In the living room, twin salvaged brick fireplaces pass through to the kitchen and dining room, a reference to the days when homes relied on fire for cooking and heating. Weathered shutters serve as doors for kitchen cabinets. And the pine floors came from a timber company in the Northeast. Jones was taken aback when the boards arrived covered in black soot. “Fortunately, all it took was a light sanding to give them a good patina,” Jones says.

Wanting more of a live/work/play setting, McGinnis designed and built a carriage house studio for the backyard, where he could run his brand marketing business, Voyage Communications. With its similar facade of shingles, columns, and a water feature out front, the smaller version pays homage to the main structure. “We really respected Jeff’s vision and wanted to do right by his example,” says McGinnis, who even ran his plans by Jones for approval. “The challenge was not to overdesign it, but to honor the original vision of simplicity and balance.”

McGinnis and Frazier’s furniture reflects their creative spirit as well. Midcentury items, flea market finds, and newer pieces are carefully mixed with antiques and contemporary art. The living room, for example, started with a button-tufted blue wool chair with swanky, retro-style lines. Other furnishings range from leather Barcelona stools and Saarinen tulip tables to an oversized Italian urn and an antique wooden chest. “It’s not an identifiable look,” McGinnis explains. “It’s more of a collection.”

With its wall-sized 7Up sign, the home office is always a conversation piece. “I knew I wanted the sign when I first saw it at Kudzu Antiques,” says McGinnis. At first the dealer didn’t want to sell, but after months of persuading, McGinnis “wore him down” and brought home the iconic Peter Max advertisement. Midcentury desk furniture also channels the sixties, a heyday of the advertising industry. “I was thinking Bewitched when I decorated the office,” says McGinnis. “I wanted a nod to Darrin’s office.” After all, it’s his business to recognize a memorable brand.

This article originally appeared in our July 2010 issue.

Outdoor Retreat: Hopes’ Folly

Lisa Mowry
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Outdoor Retreat: Hopes’ Folly

Kristine and Joe Hope’s summer house is not at the lake, it’s in their backyard. Architects Rick Spitzmiller and Robert Norris designed the freestanding structure after giving the Hopes’ house an exterior face-lift. “It’s all about the destination, a way to pull people into the garden,” explains Spitzmiller. “Ninety-nine percent of people might build a screened porch off the back of their house instead, but they would be missing something. It’s not quite the same.”

“When we bought our house twenty-six years ago, it was just about the ugliest house on the street, but the prettiest lot,” Kristine recalls. Their cozy backyard retreat was modeled after eighteenth-century “follies,” whimsical structures popular in French and English gardens. The architects originally proposed it as a pool house, but the Hopes nixed the pool and opted for a water feature instead—a narrow channel called a rill that leads to a gurgling fountain. Set on an axis with the main house, the summer house lures visitors through the Hopes’ one-acre-plus property.

The charming, understated facade—with its bell-cast eaves, double doors, and fieldstone accents—looks as if it were plucked from an English garden. By contrast, the interior is deceptively large, with a semi-octagonal wall that projects into the woods and offers an impressive view. Stone floors provide durability, vaulted ceilings enhance the sense of spaciousness, and screens keep out bugs. Although only 500 square feet, the little house is an ideal place to host a luncheon, watch a football game with the Hopes’ college-age children, or build a fire in the massive stone fireplace.

Joe often spends the day gardening, then starts a fire for evening ambience, reports his wife. “Even though it’s called a summer house, we definitely use it year-round,” says Kristine. “It is on the highest part of our property, up in the trees. It feels like you’re in the mountains.”

Resources
Architecture by Spitzmiller & Norris, spitzmillerandnorris.com
Landscape by E. Graham Pittman & Associates, egpittman.com

This article originally appeared in our July 2010 issue.

Rare Find: Quatrefoil Design

Betsy Riley
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Rare Find: Quatrefoil Design

Many blogs have grown out of stores, but Quatrefoil Design is a store that grew out of a blog. Launched last October by Holly Street, author of Things That Inspire, this online venture specializes in hard-to-find intaglios—tiny, cameolike plaster engravings depicting classical scenes and characters. When Street first posted about intaglios back in 2007, framed groupings of the nineteenth-century collectibles were just starting to appear in home and garden magazines and designer showhouses. Street, who writes about interior design, architecture, and art, immediately recognized them as “the perfect combination of sculpture and art.”

An avid “mommy blogger” with an international following, Street considered opening a store. But the former Big Four consultant shied away from the daunting investment of time and money required by bricks and mortar. Leveraging her business and technical experience with her passion for design, she found it relatively easy to enter Internet commerce. She and a friend, whom she jokingly calls her “product consultant,” located an artist and created a line of affordably priced reproductions (from $225, easily half typical showroom prices). In just a few months, the store has garnered upwards of a hundred daily online visitors and revenue in the “significant five figures”—certainly more than Street ever earned off Things That Inspire, which does not accept advertising. She is exploring other product lines, such as architectural renderings, pillows, and calligraphy.

“People feel like they know me because of the blog,” says Street. “The store doesn’t feel like some random, fly-by-night Internet site. They know my aesthetic and my taste.” An “early adopter” who followed blogs back when they were just online diaries, Street attracts some 70,000 site visits monthly—a loyal community that shares her enthusiasm for esoterica such as groin vault ceilings, chevron floors, and encaustic art. “I feel like I was made to blog,” she says, sounding a bit like Julie Powell gushing over Julia Child. “I didn’t have many other people in my everyday life who noticed what kind of faucet was in a bathroom or what kind of knob was on a door, and it was really gratifying to find there are people out there who are interested in some of the things that I’m interested in.” quatrefoildesign.com, thingsthatinspire.net

Other Great Atlanta Design Blogs
Brilliant Asylum
Well-connected Millie Sloan keeps up with Atlanta’s artists, designers, and retailers. She might write about beloved Georgia artist Lamar Dodd or maybe Jayme Leffler, owner of Armour & Co. Home Emporium. How does New Yorker Tory Burch fit in? Just two degrees of separation: Burch’s spring catalog was shot by Tina Barney, whose work Sloan saw at Fay Gold Gallery. brilliantasylum.blogspot.com

The Peak of Chic
Jennifer Boles’s blog just keeps getting better—whether she’s sharing her own travails with a dated bathroom or drawing inspiration from vintage design magazines. Though obviously on trend, she’s not afraid to champion neglected features such as window valances or linoleum. We especially love classic movie references, such as a recent post on upholstered doors in Lost Horizon. thepeakofchic.com

Style Court
Courtney Barnes’s design blog, online since 2006, has inspired many others and drawn attention from Elle Decor, Domino, and Southern Accents (remember them?). A former docent for the High Museum of Art with a master’s degree in education, Barnes has an eye for inspiring spaces and writes authoritatively about topics from Thai paper to sterling silver. stylecourt.blogspot.com

Mrs. Howard: Personal Shopper
Unlike most retail blogs, this one from two related Galleries of Peachtree Hills shops—Mrs. Howard and Max & Company—offers more useful advice than sales pitch. Regular features such as before and after photos, top ten lists, and Q&As with designer Phoebe Howard temper promotional features on new arrivals. mrshowardpersonalshopper.com

This article originally appeared in our June 2010 issue.

Idea Man: Raymond Goins

Betsy Riley
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Idea Man: Raymond Goins

It’s installation week for the blockbuster Atlanta Symphony Associates’ Decorators Show House, and Raymond Goins can hardly sit still. For Goins, a self-taught artist and furniture designer, the spring event is a debut of sorts: He’s decorated the entire master bath suite, his first solo showhouse space.

Striding around his Chamblee studio, Goins points out a sleek, white, lacquered etagere with oyster leather shelves and a pair of cement greyhounds painted whimsically like Staffordshire dogs; then he just steps back and grins, blue eyes dancing merrily. Most spectacular are the reverse-painted, citron glass panels with Etruscan symbols that will line the water closet walls, floor to ceiling. “Isn’t this fun? Aren’t these fabulous?” he gushes, his honeyed voice redolent of his native South Carolina.

Goins is one of those hypercreative people who inspired the phrase “bursting with ideas.” A hotel management job brought him to Atlanta, where he befriended longtime interior designer Marie Warren. Impressed by his charcoal portraiture, she gave him his first commission: painting a Biedermeier table with a bust of Napoleon. Soon he was opening his own studio to do original artwork, custom paint finishes, and furniture restoration. In 2000, he introduced an urn lamp called the Chelsea, which became the first in an ever-expanding line of original home accessories and furniture. Particularly popular now are painted leather screens, the lamps, a trestle table, and graceful designs such as a mirrored chest or demilune table. (For a short time, Goins also operated an art gallery, Raymond Lawrence at Tula on Bennett Street, named Atlanta’s Best New Gallery in 1998.)

Goins cites muses from Michelangelo to painter Caspar David Friedrich and designer Albert Hadley—which makes his work pretty much perfect for Atlanta’s classic taste. Even his more contemporary pieces bear hints of romantic classicism. He jokes that his showhouse bathroom, with its painted glass walls and metal mesh shutters, is a modern interpretation of a monastery’s stained glass (explicit imagery notwithstanding).

The multitasker is now doing more interior design. But he is also traveling to New York and London, establishing liaisons with ultraexclusive companies such as luxury accessories designer Asprey and linen maker Pratesi. On the polar opposite of the economic spectrum, he is introducing some less expensive products, starting with custom, hand-painted tortoiseshell frames in playful colors such as acid green, Chinese red, and robin’s egg blue. Frames start at $250. “We call it ‘Ray Goins by the foot,’” he jokes.

“I enjoy the process of things,” explains Goins. “That’s my excuse for not finishing them. It’s like being a good writer and using fewer words. You get something to a stage and then leave it alone. It’s not about absolute literal forms.” raymondgoins.com; prices quoted by order

This article originally appeared in our June 2010 issue.

Now Open: Urban Electric Co.

Betsy Riley
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Now Open: Urban Electric Co.

The Urban Electric Co.’s subtle signage, a clever logo of lowercase letters, might make you confuse its new showroom with the hidden “underground” tavern Ormsby’s, located just down the walk in the Westside’s White Provision building. But with all the national press this small company has been getting, it’s hardly a secret. Celebrity designers such as Darryl Carter, Tom Scheerer, and, most recently, Richard Mishaan have teamed up with the Urban Electric Co., which has created more than 200 types of lanterns and ceiling, wall, table, and floor fixtures. Stylistic influences range from historical to pop to industrial, but all are fresh interpretations of classic forms. All fixtures are also bench-crafted at the firm’s headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. Because everything is made to order by hand, product delivery ranges from two weeks for some “Quick Ship” items to several months for fully bespoke projects. However, since customization is the norm, clients enjoy a wide range of colors, designs, and other options. 1170 Howell Mill Road, Suite P-14, 404-815-8066, urbanelectricco.com

This article originally appeared in our May 2010 issue.

New Digs: Simply Home

Betsy Riley
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New Digs: Simply Home

Designer Jill Merkle’s new store, Simply Home, is as suffused with sunlight as a Carl Larsson watercolor. And, as in the Swedish artist’s idyllic domestic scenes, the star attraction is painted furniture. But the similarities stop there. Merkle has a very American aesthetic, a sort of sophisticated country with a pared-down, modern sensibility—Shabby Chic without the shabby.

Tucked under towering pines, the painted cottage with an eggplant-purple door has white floorboards and walls that create a glowing backdrop for texture-rich objects of bamboo, stone, felt, and rattan. Chunks of amethyst crystals, bulbous antique wine bottles, and dappled concrete mushrooms take on sculptural grace when arranged along a narrow trestle table.

Merkle’s popular custom furniture ranges from glossy, blockish tables and consoles to distressed trumeau mirrors and vintage chests, most painted subtle shades of white or gray (with a few accent pieces in vibrant shades such as orange or Tiffany blue). Even more unique are contemporary rustic lines, such as sleek metal barstools with skirted linen cushions or steel crisscrossed shelves with barn-wood inserts.

Both the store name and the merchandise are more streamlined here than at Merkle’s previous venture, Addington Osborne, which started as a retail store and evolved into a design studio and workroom. With the new location’s added space, Merkle once again offers home accessories and unique hostess-type gifts. “We’re back to being a shop,” she explains. Little treasures such as delicate bone salt-and-pepper shakers ($19 a set), Linnea’s Lights scented soy candles ($29), whimsical pottery lanterns (from $39), and fringed cotton tea towels (from $14) add character to the home furnishings.

As in her previous store, lighting is a big draw for Merkle. Some fixtures are refurbished vintage finds, such as a pair of silver sconces with turquoise beading or a glass globe pendant with new brass hardware. Others are original designs, such as drum pendants with shades of wooden rods or steel mesh—the latter providing a bit of an industrial edge.

This spring Merkle will be selling containers, boxwoods, and other plants in the cottage’s backyard, which doubles as an event space. With chattering birds overhead and a quaint white gazebo, the gardens seem miles away from busy Roswell Road out front. 4209 Roswell Road, 404-497-9781

This article originally appeared in our May 2010 issue.

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