That book, вЂњModern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam,вЂќ co-written with Julie Iovine, a design and architecture critic, was published by Rizzoli in 2008. Paul Evans, Karl Springer, Vladimir Kagan, all the people who are in my book, were remnants at that time.вЂќ Jean-Luc Le MounierвЂ™s вЂњNice Day,вЂќ a pair of low cabinets made of ebony, white bronze, and sycamore ChristieвЂ™s and SothebyвЂ™s would basically dump at Tepper Galleries in New York all their modern furniture. I was buying from marginal auction houses. вЂњI was one of the first people to kind of take things out of the trash. вЂњI was interested in the bespoke, custom, artistвЂ™s studio stuff that was made by a small group of craftsmen or by an individual maker whose design was unique.вЂќ He cited as an example Karl Springer, who was designing furniture covered in shells and goatskin. You start buying more.вЂќДЇor the first 10 years he dealt in modern furniture, but not manufactured pieces. We could see that the clientele wanted something fresh, and not many dealers were offering that kind of thing.

вЂњThe modern pieces took off very quickly. I sort of cobbled together the business.вЂќ By bringing it to the city, it kept their stuff for sale, and I mixed it with the things I had bought and some antiques. вЂњThey were both closing for the winter and suggested I take whatever I wanted from their inventory. Merrill had become friendly with Jean Yves Legrand and Susan Yungbluth, antiques dealers from Sag Harbor. The shop started with a mix of antiques and 20th-century American modern furniture. You were basically getting packets of heroin with your chopped liver at KatzвЂ™s deli.вЂќ вЂњThe drug dealing on the corners, in the bodegas, was very dicey. He opened in 2000 in a small rental on the corner of Stanton and Ludlow Streets on the Lower East Side. Stern, and Anthony Ingrao among its collectors are Lenny Kravitz and the Duke of Devonshire.

Its clients include the architects Peter Marino, Robert A.M. That business, Todd Merrill Studio, headquartered in a spacious ground floor showroom on Lafayette Street in SoHo, is renowned for its eclectic mix of 20th and 21st-century furniture, lighting, and contemporary art. вЂњI worked for a couple of high-tech internet companies in the late 1990s, and then I just decided I never wanted to do another corporate boardroom meeting again. While still in his 20s, he was the public relations director for North and South America for ChristieвЂ™s auction house, and then the director of media relations for Showtime Networks. вЂњI went to Emerson College in Boston to escape the antiques business.

I never knew anything different.вЂќДЄs he approached college age, however, the man who had rummaged through peopleвЂ™s estates as a child chose a road not taken by his relatives. Everybody was working tangentially, somehow, in the antiques business. вЂњWe kind of lived in a family compound with my uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents all together. вЂњMy grandparents lived across the street from us,вЂќ said Mr. MerrillвЂ™s grandparents did a lot of buying for the Webb family, who put together the collection for the Shelburne (Vt.) Museum, and they became interested in folk art before it was being widely collected. There were always items in those houses that were really, really good.вЂќ Mr. вЂњAnd I couldnвЂ™t wait to get inside and read their letters and go through their stuff.

Merrill said recently during a conversation in Southampton. вЂњWhen I was a kid, 4 or 5 years old, every other weekend it would be some huge house in the country that five generations had lived in,вЂќ Mr. Now run by his brother, Ethan, the auction house handles estates throughout New England, in upper New York State, and occasionally from Long Island. His father, Duane, started MerrillвЂ™s Auction Gallery in Vermont in 1967. Nathan and Margaret Merrill, his grandparents, founded the Vermont Antiques Dealers Association and established the Ethan Allen Antique Shop in South Burlington in the late 1930s. Todd Merrill was to the manor born, but it wasnвЂ™t his familyвЂ™s manor.

Todd theine grandparent