Antique & Design Center of High Point

Antique & Design Center - Fall 2011

2011-12-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

See the videos from the Antique & Design Center Fall 2011 show, at High Point Market, and hear what some of our exhibitors and buyers had to say.

We are getting ready for another amazing show, April 20-26th, 2012!

Spaces are filling up quickly, so if you are an antiques dealer or artisan, interested in exhibiting with us this spring, please check out our website www.hpadc.com and contact us to learn about available spaces and details.

If you are an interior designer, home furnishings store owner, buyer, or design blogger,we invite you visit The Antique & Design Center at Market Square, in the spring during The High Point Home Furishings Market. We promise, you won't be disappointed.

Thank You

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Thank you to all of our wonderful exhibitors, for once again, creating a beautiful Antique & Design Center Show this fall.

And thank you to everyone that came to find those perfect treasures they were searching for.

Now time to get ready for the Spring!

BE MOVED!

Estate Design & Trade

Michelle Fox and TJ Antorino

Exclusive To The Trade

Designers and buyers enjoy the treasure hunt.

Pennoyer Newman

the thrill of the find

A. Tyner Antiques

Dinnerparty Antiques


Julia Buckingham Edelmann - of Buckingham Interiors + Design and Material Girls Blog, spoke during our VandM.com Lecture Series

A. Tyner Antiques

LaDonna Antiques & Interiors

Julie Harris Antiques

Tuesdays On The Boulevard and Arcanum Interiors

Tandem Antiques

Tuesdays On The Boulevard and Arcanum Interiors

Antique & Design Center at Market Square Seminar Schedule

2011-10-20T09:59:00.002-04:00

World-Class Speakers Begin Taking Stage SaturdayMorning!

Have you heard about the special seminar series taking placehere at the High Point Market in the Antique & Design Center at MarketSquare? Each of the world-class speakers is considered a rock star in his orher chosen field and you can expect each session is a learning experience parexcellence!

All seminars take place in the Mezzanine Level Seminar Spacein the Antique & Design Center in historic Market Square. No reservationsare necessary, and thanks to the sponsorship of VandM.com, the entire series isfree to all attending Market!

The series kicks off Saturday morning, October 22 at 10 a.m.with social media practitioner Leslie Carothers and a special breakfastpresentation called “Breakfast in Bed with Leslie: Waking Up to the Power ofSocial Media.” Billed as a rousing wake-up call on social media metrics, thepresentation is sponsored by Pandora de Balthazar, the premier worldwidecollector and purveyor of classic antique textiles, who is exhibiting at theAntique & Design Center for the first time this Market.

Carothers will tackle the one topic on the minds ofdesigners, retailers and manufacturers everywhere. Namely, how do you measurethe return on investment (ROI) of social media? Does it really work to get newsales? Secure new clients? Attract media attention? If you’d like to get yoursocial media strategy on track and jump-start your Market faster than adouble-shot of espresso, plan to start your Opening Day with us at the Antique& Design Center.

Next up on Saturday at 2 p.m. is Chicago Interior DesignerJulia Buckingham Edelmann, principal of Buckingham Interiors & Design LLC,who presents “Modern-ique: Integrating Antiques and Artifacts with ModernDesign for Today’s Lifestyles.” With a reputation for mixing styles and eras tocreate surprising, whimsical and unique environments, and an educated eye foronly the best and most unique pieces, Edelmann sees aged objects as modern art.

Regular readers of the AD&C blog know both Pandora deBalthazar and Julia Buckingham Edelmann have been the subjects of recent blogprofiles here. We’re looking forward to finally meeting these talented andinspiring women in person.

Sunday, October 23, 2 p.m. features an encore performance by BillIndursky, co-founder of VandM.com. If you caught his talk at Spring Marketearlier this year, you know his provocative trend presentation simply bleweveryone away. If you haven’t heard him, this is your big chance. Bill isreturning for Yearbook 2011/2012: Trend Forecast for the Antique and Home DécorIndustries. It’s a not-to-be-missed, in-depth and up-to-the-minute analysis ofwhere the antique and home décor industries are headed. We can tell you fromexperience that he provides a fact-based forecast that is thought-provoking andlively. If it’s been awhile since your last ‘aha’ moment, you owe it toyourself (and your business!) to attend this session.

Retail Sherpa, stylist, designer and entrepreneur Suzi Westfollows at 3:30 on Sunday with Passion and the Six P’s of Successful Retailing.West has more than 17 years of retail experience in merchandising, marketingand managing with brands like Express, Aeropostale, NBC, Homage, Limited Brandsand DSW. The force behind Collier West, with its unique mix of vintage andantique furniture, home furnishings and décor, she is a passionate leader witha record of building brands and environments that turn ideas intoprofitability. With a focus on the Six P’s of marketing fundamentals, thissession is appropriate for both the small business leader and largeorganization, and breaks each practice into understandable and executablesteps. Count on her to reawaken the merchant within.

Following Suzi West, we’re looking forward to the big paneldiscussion led by our own Karen Luisana, executive director and founder of theAntique & Design Center at Market Square. Karen is set to wrap up Sunday’soffering at 5 p.m., with “You Don’t Smell Potpourri in Here: Reinventing theAntiques Business.” Her panelists include Hilary Eklund, Tandem Antiques; BreckArmstrong, Moss Studio; Barry Cotton, Barry Cotton Antiques and Blogger Allison Watts, the force behind the popularblog heirloomphilosophy.blogspot.com.

“Our panel of experts will provide an insider’s take on theevolution and revolution underway in today’s antiques business,” Karen says.“If ever there was a time to be dealing in antiques, this is it. People aretiring of disposable, mass-produced goods that don’t last. Everywhere we look,we see that consumers are craving furnishings of real quality. More and morewant to invest in pieces with a story behind them that will continue toincrease in value over time, and they are gravitating toward the sustainablenature of antiques as well. If you think this is your grandmother’s business,these panelists are gunning to change your mind.”

Monday, October 24 at 2 p.m. brings another popular speakerback to the series with David Lindquist and “Understanding the Value ofAntiques in Today’s Market.” With slides and actual objects drawn from thefloor the Antique & Design Center, the presentation will prepareparticipants to speak intelligently about what is currently happening in theworld of antiques, “particularly the astonishing decline of antique prices,which is bringing antiques into sharp competition with modern reproductions andfine modern furniture,” Lindquist says.

Breck Armstrong, principal of Moss Studios takes the podiumat 3:30 on Monday for “Found Objects Repurposed for Modern Home Décor.”Armstrong left his job in Chicago, working with antiques and salvage, for thespace and serenity of a farm in Michigan. With this experience, combined withhis background in ceramics and nine years with the Brookfield Zoo creatingexhibits, he decided to start his own business. Since then, with a unique andever-changing collection of industrial salvage, he has gained a reputation forcreating industrial modern furniture and home accessories and his ‘objects withstories’ are featured in an enviable list of the country’s leading-edge homeand style retailers.

Finally, Clayton Oxford, principal of Clayton OxfordDesigns, will wrap up the series for us on Tuesday, October 25 at 2 p.m. with“Entrepreneurship & Design: The Benefits of Local Sourcing.” A designer andentrepreneur, Clayton Oxford believes that when designers design from theirlocal resources, furniture will be made in the U.S. again. As he says, “Design used to be driven byquantity, but now more than ever, design has to be driven by quality andvalue.” To which we say, “Hear! Hear!”

Clayton will be discussing the anomaly of the small businessimporter and his switch to domestic production. We encourage everyone to comelearn how a new sense of design guided by entrepreneurship and local materialswill lead furniture production into the future. We promise you’ll gaininspiration from Oxford’s tenacious and naive endeavors to take on thearchetype of today’s furniture company.

Prepare To Be Floored

2011-10-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

Character Unlimited is Coming to High Point Market

When designers, builders and architects walk through thedoors of Character Unlimited in Hudson, N.Y. for the first time--a city wellknown for its active arts scene and enclave of antique dealers--the reaction isalmost always the same. Taking in the natural beauty of the time-weatheredmaterials and handcrafted custom furniture, they turn to designer MicahGeraghty and say, “Where…have…you…been?”

We expect the responses to be just as awed and enthusiastic whenbuyers and designers discover Character Unlimited here in High Point, exhibitingfor the first time ever at the Fall 2011 Market.

To be sure, Geraghty is coming to the Antique & DesignCenter at Market Square with an offering of products not typically found inHigh Point. That’s because along with his custom furniture designs crafted byhand from pristine reclaimed materials, Character Unlimited will also beshowcasing samples of the reclaimed materials the firm uses to design, buildand install everything from interior wall panels to ceilings, flooring andentire homes.

Among notable projects, Character Unlimited recently suppliedmuch of the eco-friendly building materials for the remodel of a massive homein Bedford, N.Y., that became the subject of a coffee-table book called KennedyGreen House. Written by Robin Wilson, the book documents the renovation of thehome into a green domicile by its owner, Robert Kennedy, Jr. (Yes, that Robert Kennedy, Jr.).

The seeds of Geraghty’s passion for organic materials andbuilding were planted early, as a young boy working in his father’sconstruction business. They grew over time into a unique ability to see beautyin what others disregard or deem useless. “It really stems from growing up asour country did originally,” he describes. “Out of necessity, people used the itemsthey had for a longer period of time, rather than throwing everything away andmaking something new.”

The young man’s affinity for building and natural materials ledhim to launch his own restoration company at the age of 18. “I would go out with a small truck andsource the reclaimed products for our projects myself,” he remembers. “Then, in2005, I purchased a huge flooring operation. We would take raw material andfield dress it off the buildings, and each lot of material our customerspurchased was documented with photos of the structures.”

And what buildings! Early Americans built homes, barns andout-buildings with no power tools, electricity or fuel and Geraghty searchesfar and near to preserve and recycle the wood, metal and stone they yield. Heand his team cull everything from hand-hewn frames to vintage wood wide-plankflooring, to weathered siding, windows, doors and cupolas from the oldstructures.

“Character Unlimited is a family-run business and we prideourselves on the fact that we don’t sell anything that we don’t fabricate, andthat every piece of wood we use is reclaimed by us.” Most recently, they nettedthe wide-plank cherry that comprised the Van Vechten Family Grist Mill whichwas built in upstate New York circa 1650. “We’re talking about pieces of woodthat are wide enough and long enough to have been standing timbers in the1500’s,” Geraghty points out.

To use beautiful woods saturated with natural character, andmarked by unique tones and grain textures solely for flooring seemed a shame, soGeraghty moved beyond flooring to focus on turning the materials into the tables,chairs, cabinets purveyed today at Character Unlimited. “I wanted to movebeyond simply supplying the material into the art form, and the feelings theycreate when somebody looks at them and owns them.”

Written By Kimberley Wray
Photos Courtesy of Character Unlimited LLC

Exhibitor Resource: Antique & Design Center at Market Square

2011-10-17T17:42:00.000-04:00

High Point Market exhibitors looking for the perfectfinishing touches to complete their showroom displays this week should checkout the Antique & Design Center in historic Market Square. An idealresource for exhibitors and showroom designers, the Antique & Design Centeropens to the trade on Thursday, October 20^th at noon.

Housed in what was once a turn-of-the-century furniturefactory, the Antique & Design Center has quickly become a favorite venue ofthe world's savviest retailers and designers. Exhibitors will find nearly 80hand-picked dealers and artisans offering exquisite antiques, original works ofart, and one-of-a-kind finds to set their showrooms apart.

The Antique & Design Center is located on the Ground andMezzanine levels of historic Market Square, just beyond the Suites and Salon. Freeparking is available on Tomlinson St. The venue will remain open from 9 a.m. to6 p.m. on Friday, October 21, and through Market Week from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. TheAntique & Design Center closes on Thursday, October 27th, at noon.

Clayton Oxford Comes Home

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The majority of home furnishings manufacturers these dayswill tell you they were “forced” to produce overseas. Clayton Oxford, chiefexecutive officer and founder of Durham, N.C.-based Clayton Oxford Designs,will tell you that he was forced to move production back to North Carolina.

As much as he enjoys international travel, Clayton Oxford hasa thing about control, particularly when it comes to the supply chain andproduction of his distinctive, eco-friendly home furnishings and accessories.He also likes to be able to tell his customers--interior designers andretailers--that he can actually deliver their orders in two to three weeks.

While others bemoan the current state of the U.S. furnitureindustry, and the impact that the loss of manufacturing jobs has had on thecountry, Oxford believes that when designers create products using localresources, furniture will be made in the U.S. again. “Design used to be drivenby quantity, but now more than ever, design has to be driven by quality andvalue,” he says. “It’s not about what we can’t make in the U.S., but what wecan.”

Oxford will share his thought-provoking perspective,Tuesday, October 25, from 2 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. in the Mezzanine Level Seminar Space,during “Entrepreneurship & Design:The Benefits of Local Sourcing,” an Antique & Design Center at MarketSquare seminar, sponsored by VandM.com.

A native of Winston-Salem, N.C., Oxford decided to pursuehis career in home furnishings design following film school, where he majoredin art direction and production design. “I realized I didn’t want to make propsfor movies,” he says. “It was fun, but we spent so much time building thesegreat things and then we’d just tear them down after the shoot.”

Knowing he wanted to make things of lasting value, thedesigner set out to import “truly unique products that had not been on themarket before.” And he was successful at it--shipping many containers statesideover the years.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to go that way,” Oxford says,recalling the early days spent knocking on factory doors in the Phillipineswith a backpack and a plan to create a company. It’s just that as the companygrew, he grew frustrated by the excessive lead times, delays and headachesinherent in the process of manufacturing overseas.

This week, Oxford will bring some 70 new, modern rusticdesigns to the High Point Market that were produced in North Carolina usingnative solid woods like American black walnut, cherry, magnolia and maple andreclaimed barn wood. Most is sourced within a 20-mile radius of where thefurnishings are manufactured in Durham. As part of the “Natural Slice”collection, Oxford also repurposes materials like slabs of river-recoveredcypress wood estimated to be between 1500 and 2000 years old. Hence thecompany’s apt tagline: “Designed by Nature, Crafted by Hand.”

While Oxford does continue to import some raw stock inspecies like acacia, teak, rosewood and cocobolo, the member of the SustainableFurnishings Council notes that anything he imports is FSC certified. “It’s allwood that has naturally fallen down or was taken down in a sustainable way,” herelates.

Honing the production process and sorting out the supplychain may have involved a long and circuitous journey, but the entrepreneur ispleased with the results and eager to share what he’s learned in taking on thearchetype of today’s furniture company.

Indeed, he says, “We’re at the point now where we areactually the company we’ve wanted to be for years, and we’ve created five orsix new jobs in the past couple of months in order to keep up with the demandfrom customers who want quality, American-made products. And, we’re doing itcompetitively.”

By Kimberley Wray
Photos courtesy of Clayton Oxford

Mac is Back in Town

2011-10-11T16:10:00.003-04:00

Mclean Lighting Works Returns to the High Point Market

Interior Featuring McLean Lighting Works

For antique lighting cognoscente, designers in the know, andall those who appreciate quality lighting products produced in the U.S., thereis reason to rejoice. After a long hiatus, McLean Lighting Works is returningto the High Point Market. You heard it here first: Mac Moore and company areback in town!

Actually, Moore was really never too far away. McLeanLighting Works, manufacturers of fine interior and exterior antiquereproductions and custom lighting, is after all, based just down the road inGreensboro, N.C. But it’s been some years since the firm exhibited its antiquereproduction lighting--ranging from exterior and interior hanging and wall-mountfixtures to chandeliers, sconces and lamps recreated in brass, copper and tinwith hand-rubbed patina finishes--in Market Square, and later in the IHFC.

Tools of the trade.

“The Internet changed the world, and it eventually changed theway we operated at McLean Lighting Works,” Moore says. “But by relying solelyon the Internet, over time we lost one of the things that I like most aboutthis business, and that is the face-to-face contact with customers. Regardlessof how good your website is, you can’t replace that.”

Mac Moore

At the same time, Moore was ready to launch another facet ofMcLean Works: antique lighting. “We have loved and collected antiques for yearsand when we saw the new Antique & Design Center at Market Square, we knewwe’d found the perfect venue to bring them to Market,” Moore relates. “We’revery excited about connecting personally with buyers and designers again and tobeing a viable source for antique lighting.”

Buyers and designers on the hunt this season will note agreat number of vintage lights on display in the McLean Lighting Works space, somefrom now defunct (and coveted) Virginia Metalcrafters. There will also beantique street lights in the space from England and France, as well as a streetlight from Boston signed by its maker with most of the original glass intact. Oh,and coach lights, lots of coach lights, all restored by hand in the McLeanLighting Works workshop, by people dedicated to their craft, using the same methodsand techniques that were used to create the pieces originally.

“We operate a hands-on business,” Moore says. “The peoplethat we employ are very smart and highly educated and like to work with theirhands. It’s somewhere between craft and manufacturing. We don’t mass-produceanything, but we make a lot of things.”

Indeed, McLean Lighting Works is responsible for restoringor duplicating many period lights throughout the State, including a large,three-tier chandelier in the library of Bennett College and the chapel lanternsof Wesley Memorial Church here in High Point. The firm was also the primary supplier of all the authenticlighting used in the movie The Patriot,starring Mel Gibson.

If Americana is beginning to sound like a theme here, it’sbecause McLean Lighting Works was originally launched as a supplier to TheSaltbox, a retail establishment operated by Moore’s wife, Nancy, in the StateStreet Station area of Greensboro that specializes in American-made folk art,pottery and paintings, as well as one-of-a-kind handcrafted art and antiques.

“We’ve always collected American,” Moore says, adding thatin addition to antique lighting, there will be a goodly selection of Americanantique and vintage furnishings for buyers to peruse in the space this Market.Welcome back Mac!

Honey guards the shop.

Written by Kimberley Wray. 1st 2 photos courtesy of McLean Lighting other Photography by Amanda LaneKinney.

Lady Caroline

2011-09-28T12:27:00.001-04:00

Colorful andexpansive, Caroline Faison is as surprising as her lovely

Greensboro shop.

Live and learn. If ever there was asuccessful woman who has taken that maxim to heart it’s Caroline Faison, whoopened a small consignment shop filled with “dreadful things” in Greensboro,N.C. some 45 years ago and grew it into one of the most well-respected, andsimply lovely, antiques shops in the country.

How lovely? Well, on those occasions whenNorth Carolina is mentioned in casual conversation to those in the antiquestrade, the next sentence is invariably along the lines of, “Caroline Faison hasa shop there. Do you know how lucky you are?”
For those lucky enough to have discoveredthe treasure-filled gem, elegantly tucked into a series of cobbled-togetherbuildings, it’s difficult to believe that Faison is entirely self-taught.

“I would love to say I have a degree fromParsons, but I’m from Charleston, W.V., and I think my parents had prayinghands over a sideboard,” she says with a laugh. “The truth is that I was youngand nice and people were kind to me from the outset. The people of Greensborohave been wonderful. I’m sure that in the first few years I was in business Imust have been dumber than dirt. But if I told somebody something they knewwasn’t true, at least they knew I thought it was.”

As example, she relates, “When I firstopened, I visited an antiques dealer in town and asked if he would give me acouple of things on consignment. He said, ‘Yes, this is a pair of Queen Annechairs.’ So I grabbed the chairs and ran back here, polished them and looked themup. The encyclopedia said 1720-40 so that’s what I dated them. A woman walkedin and said, ‘If I thought those were really Queen Anne chairs I’d buy them formy sister.’ And I said, ‘Well, they certainly are! The man that owned them isvery respectable!’ ”

The woman did purchase the chairs whichturned out to be circa 1920, “and has been one of my best friends in all the timesince,” Faison says with a bemused shake of her head. “I have 20 stories likethat from those early years, maybe 220. I was just flying by the seat of mypants.”

Plus, she acknowledges, those weredifferent times. “There was a bank here years ago called Community, and a manwho started it named Bill Black. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be heretoday. He would lend me $5000 for a weekend sale in Pinehurst, and I would keepa few loans going for trips to Europe. In the beginning, the trips were toEngland, before I got the nerve to go to France and Italy and the Scandinaviancountries. Bear in mind, all of the trips were financed by the bank and I hadto be able to pay them back. That made me very careful about what I chose tobuy.

“Then, about two years after I opened, anolder woman who worked with me part-time said, ‘I’ll give you $50,000 to let mework everyday.’ So we drew up the papers and I took her money to the man whoowned the two buildings adjacent to mine and we shook hands on a deal topurchase them. Then I headed to England to fill up the new space.”

As she made money, the young entrepreneurwas able to buy nicer things. “It was luck and timing and tenacity, coupledwith a very real passion for collecting. They say I will drive to Idaho for abroken Delft bowl,” Faison says today with a self-deprecating laugh. “But it’sa wonderful thing to find something that’s old and beautiful. It fills up mysoul. It thrills me. Sometimes I can’t believe that, somehow or other, it’s inthe back of my car. Now, because of that feeling, there are people all over theUnited States that will call me and say, ‘I have a thus-and-so.’ ”

Over time, Faison developed many closefriendships in the design community, and she credits the look of her shop totips she gleaned over the years, as well as the time she would spend pouringover “beautiful rooms in magazines.” And then there was Otto Zenke, who wasresponsible for many elegant interiors across the Piedmont and Sandhills regionsof the State, as well as the Governor’s Mansion. “He was the most fantasticdesigner with shops in London, Palm Beach and New York, and he lived here,”Faison says. “He is really responsible for educating people in this area about18^th and 19^th century English furniture.”

Today, Caroline Faison Antiques is best described as high-endcontinental, and Faison herself enjoys a worldwide reputation as one of themost original and adventurous collectors and dealers in the business. She’ll bebringing some of her most favorite pieces to Market, such as a rare William andMary chest, and “big, dramatic pieces, just things that Ilove,” she says. “I don’t really plan it all out. I just put my whole heart andsoul in and do it!”

Written by Kimberley Wray
Photo by David Brown Photography