1978
The year it began
Our story
A shop born from one estate sale and a stubborn love of old things
Our founder, Mary Whitmore, bought her first piece (a chipped Staffordshire dog) at a Macon estate sale in 1977. She meant to resell it the next weekend. She still has it, in a place of honor behind the counter.
That's the truth at the heart of this shop: we are collectors first, dealers second. Every armoire, clock, and salt cellar that comes through our door is researched, dated, and documented. If we wouldn't put it in our own homes, we don't put it on the floor.
Today her son James runs the gallery with the same rule book: buy honestly, price fairly, and treat every family's heirloom like it might be the last one of its kind. Because it might be.
The shop itself tells the same story: the pressed-tin ceiling is original to the 1892 building, the floorboards creak in the same spots they creaked when the building was a dry-goods store, and the front window is still dressed by hand every Tuesday, the same ritual Mary started in 1978.
Mary & James Whitmore
Founder & proprietor
