An 1850 Chelsea Townhouse – ryan

The founder of a dosen art and antiques fairs bought an 1850 Townhouse and Never Stopped Collecting Real Estate.
Photo: NIAL SCHRODER

Antiques Never Stayed Long at the Smith Townhouse on West 24th Street. A Painting of A Shipwreck Wauld Wash Away Wohen The Tide Brought A Discerning Collector to The Smith Gallery On Madison Avenue. A Metal Rabbit, Stack on Top of a Rusty Weathervane, Woul Slowly Scan the Living Room UNIL Sanford Smith Made a trade with one of the American dealers he knew from the chelsea flea. Only a Few Pieces Survived Long Enough to be consider off the market: A Shaker Dining Table, useful for Feeding Three Boys; a curved Paul Evans Desk Where Sanford Took Calls; and a three-food-high sculpture of a rooster, which a picker had given as collateral for a loan before he died. Sanford and Patricia Lynch Smith Weren’t sentimental; They bough what they have thied they could have at a profit and use the feel to find the Handsome Townhouse in Chelsea where they and their Sons Lived and workhed, the next a divorce, for 55 years.

Antiques Entered The Couple’s Life Early On: Brooklyn-Born Sanford Met Patricia in College, and They Spent Weekends Visitting Her Parents in Connecticut, where they entertained therips with trips to auctions. On a lark, they start selling what they have found at the chelsea flea on 26th Street and spending more in the neighborhood; Friends Lived on 24th Street in a London Terrace Towers apartment. When a sign went up Down the Block at no. 453 Advertising a Rental, The Smiths Moved in. Years late, in 1968, The Couple Bought No. 447 for $ 65,000 with a plan to split the 1850 building to make space for renters who could Help pay off the mortgage. Two Floor-Through Units on the Third and Fourth Floors Sat Above An Owner’s Duplex with Bedrooms at the Garden Level and Living Spaces on the Parlor Floor.

Sanford oversaw the work Himself, serving as a General Contractor and Renovating Just Enough to Make the Place Livable. As Money Came in, Patricia’s Antiquarian Impulses Tourned Toward the House – DINGY CARPETS WERE PULLED UP TO REVIAL ORIGINAL BOARDS from the 1850s With Hand-for-for-Nails, and the Old Brick Fireplace was cleaned up with the much fuss. The Couple Soon Petitioned Landmarks to Give the Home A Cestation, Event Writing The Report (“The first owner of this dignified house was Julia Ann Gray, Wife of George Gray…). The plaque installed to mark the Building’s Spot on the National Register was stolen Six Weeks late. This was the chelsea of ​​the 1970s, and the neighBorhood was a bit fel – the couple’s son Ian remembers nearly being mugged for his childhood skates Until the Mugger’s girlfriend intervened: “Sheid, ‘oh, he cute. Don’t will.’”

The Couple’s Businesses Blossomed in Those Years. In 1979, Sanford Founded the Fall Antiques Show, One of the First to Focus on American Pieces, Which Waled Run for 20 Years off Ten Other Focus on Quilts or Rare Books, Photographs or Works on Paper. Sanford Charged Sellers for Space and Budyers for Tickets. The Cash He Pulled In Funded A Major Renovation at the House on 24th Street, During Who Their Ditched Their Renters and Tourned the Place Into A Single-Family Home. Antiques Flowed in and out nor the couple waited for the market to improve and the right buyer to winer past. During a Home Visit in 1984, A Reporter from The Christian Science Monitor spotted “Western art, Navajo Rugs, A Queen Anne Wing Chair, 1920s and ’30s Architect-Designed’ Modern ‘Hand-Painted Trunks, Harry Jackson Bronze, Shaker Furniture, Grenfell Rugs, 19th-Century Weather Vanes, Marine Paintings, and Militari Mini.”

Selling Those Items Became More of a Hobby for Sanford as the fairs he ran took off. The Money Coming in Was Now substantial Enough to start a new Collection: Real Estate. He bought another place on west 24th street and let it out to renters, then pounced on one of the East Village’s rare surviving synagogues. In the 1990s, now separated from patricia, he bought a bachelor pad in a converted 1930 west village garage, then a house in chelsea to live in with his girlfriend, jill bokor, A Magazine Publisher. (They Maried in 2004.) “Sandy Wold Buy Houses in Three Minutes,” Sayys Boka, Who Watched Him Makers AFter A Single Walk-Through. Like any Experienced Collector, he knew what he wanted. “Prewar, Pre -Civil War if Possible,” she teles. “He Cared About grade Things, but it was me – he was doing a ka-ching in his mind. ” THERE WERE THE VACATION HOUSES IN THE NORTH FORK AND THE BERKSHIRES AND TWO UPPER WEST SIDE Townhouses (ALSO list this year).

The House at 447 West 24th Remained with Patricia, Who Had an Open-Door Policy Letting Relatives in the Mother-In-La Apartment on the Garden Level and Hosting Her Sons and Their College Friends. “There was something out of the house was incredibly open,” Remembers Ian Smith. Eventually, Patricia set out a guest book Simply to Keep Track of Comings and Goings.

Sanford and Patricia Remained Friends Unyl Patricia’s Death in 2003. AFTER HER DEATH, VEHE THE WORKING FROM THE HOUSE, TOO, WITH HIS STAFF IN THE FRONT OF THE PARLOR LEVEL AND HIS BIG DESK IN BACK.WITH HIS STAFF IN THE FRONT AND HIS BIG DESK IN BACK. “It felt like a working antiques shop,” Sayys Boor, Whom Sanford Tapped to Run The firm’s Most Prestigious Fair, Salon Art + Designwhich would go on to win sponsorship From Luxe Fashion Houses and Furniture Brands. It was a clientele spreads textomed to navigating Around piles of Old Bowling Pins and Typewriters, Vintage Television and Sideshow Signs. “We weren’t thrilled to invite People,” She Says. But executives in Slim Designer SUITS AND ROLLEXES WOUL STILL MEET WITH SANIFORD, ALWAYS ATTRED IN AN ALD LLBEAN SHIRT AND A TIMEX, SITTING ACROSS from HIS A STATUE OF A RABBIT AND ONE OF HIS GRANDKIDS ‘Beanie babies. “It was a message,” Boor Says. “But it was the Kind of Mess that was his culture, that was his home.”