Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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26-A Maine Antique Digest, March 2015
- FEATURE -
In the Trade
Acroterion, Randal Dawkins, Kinderhook, New York
by Frank Donegan
Optimism doesn’t run ram-
pant in the antiques trade
these days, so it’s refresh-
ing to come across a relatively
new—and relatively young
(under 40, that is)—dealer who
has faith in traditional antiques.
Randal Dawkins, who sells
out of his charming early house
in Kinderhook, New York, said,
“As sure as I’m sitting here, fine
furniture will always be relevant.
It is a myth that only modern is
relevant and patently untrue that
pre-geriatric people only want
modern. The corporate world
wants you to think it’s all mod-
ern because that’s what the cor-
porate world is selling.”
It is fitting that Dawkins
calls his business Acroterion,
the architectural term for the
sculptural details that graced the
roofs of ancient Greek buildings.
Dawkins said he tries to pay par-
ticular attention to the details of
the pieces he deals in, and he
has a special fondness for Neo-
classical and Classical antiques
from the late 18th and early 19th
centuries.
But don’t get him wrong. He’s
not a sworn enemy of modern-
ism. In fact, he said, “Modern
art and period furniture is my
favorite mix in the whole world.
I have an affinity for Georgian
and Regency, but I don’t want to
be limited to that period. My life
isn’t lived from 1780 to1840.”
As Dawkins pointed out, “I’m
very heavy on interior designers
and architects,” and it would be
difficult to function successfully
in their world if one didn’t sym-
pathize with today’s decorat-
ing trends, which are all about
simplifying interiors. “I don’t
believe that formal furniture has
to be used in a formal setting.”
If you’re a regular reader of
Architectural Digest or Elle
Décor or World of Interiors,
you’ll see lots of modern, but
there are still plenty of design-
ers who love antiques and use
them regularly, albeit not often
in “period” rooms, as they did
in the 1980s and ’90s. And the
trade, after all, is the backbone
of Dawkins’s business. “I’m
about seventy percent trade and
thirty percent private,” he said.
In light of this, Dawkins stocks
a few modern pieces that he
feels work well with the period
things he loves, and he’s quick
to respond to designers’ wants.
He notes that you’ll often find
him “Burning up the Taconic
[Parkway]” ferrying pieces from
his Columbia County home into
Manhattan for decorators to
inspect.
Besides his optimism, Daw-
kins exhibits another character-
istic that distinguishes him from
many others in the business. He
deals almost exclusively in shiny,
high-style furniture—mahogany,
rosewood, satinwood—at a time
when many would say that mar-
ket is dead.
So far, he has found that a
dealer in this material can sur-
vive. “The people I sell to tend
to live in homes that demand
fine furniture,” he said. “It’s eas-
ier to justify spending money on
something you need—a chair, a
table, a sofa—than on accesso-
ries. That’s my business model. I
don’t want to sell things that are
extraneous to people.”
Dawkins grew up in Valdosta,
Georgia, and was involved with
antiques from an early age. He
said, “My parents and grand-
parents on both sides were col-
lectors and took me to auctions
and estate sales. My mother says
that when I was around eight, I
would wake my parents up to
take me to estate sales.”
He comes from the type of
southern family that one might
expect to treasure old things.
His father’s family arrived in
South in the 1670s; his moth-
er’s in the 1730s. “There hasn’t
been a period in my life when I
wasn’t passionately interested in
antiques and beautiful objects,”
Dawkins said.
He had a subscription to the
magazine Early American Life
before he was ten, and by the age
of 12 he was exhibiting at local
antiques shows. “I started col-
lecting Chinese export,” he said.
“Most everything had a chip or a
crack. At shows I was almost an
amusement. I was in very geri-
atric company. I got lots of pats
on the head and cheek pinches.
My best friends were my parents
and grandparents. I’ve always
preferred the company of older
people.”
Although today he deals
mostly in furniture, Dawkins
still keeps some export ware on
hand. He notes that one of his
surprise sales at the end of last
year was a mammoth Nanking
platter that he sold to a lawyer
in Colorado who wanted it as a
Christmas present for his wife.
Dawkins graduated from Val-
dosta State University with a
degree in European history and
then went off to study at Sothe-
by’s master’s program in Lon-
don—a time he recalls as idyllic.
“I’ve always been an Anglo-
phile,” he said.
He had done a study-abroad
period in London during col-
lege and couldn’t wait to return.
“Sotheby’s program is the most
amazing thing,” he recalled.
“Every Friday for two years we
had a private country house tour.
If I could do it again, I would get
on the plane in five minutes.”
He said he wrote his thesis on
Thomas Sheraton’s last (1806)
design book.
Dawkins spent four years
in London, which included an
internship at Sotheby’s Olympia
auction rooms. It was there, he
said, that “I discovered quickly
that auction is not the job for
me.” The top-level houses are
very social places where, he
said, “They want you to wear
Gucci on an Old Navy salary.
It’s grueling. You have to have
a masochistic side to yourself.
I like fine things, and I knew I
couldn’t afford them on an auc-
tion house salary.”
In any case, it was time for
him to leave London. “I had a
very kind immigration officer,”
he explained. “I was on a stu-
dent visa, and she said, ‘Randal,
you either have to get a job or
go to school, or you’re going to
have to leave. I like you, but I’m
not willing to lose my job over
you.’”
In 2006 he flew from London
to New York City and stayed. He
found out quickly that a degree
from the Sotheby’s program
didn’t make you a hot property
in the big city. He worked for
a time as a freelance buyer for
various dealers, picking vintage
clothing, fabrics, and architec-
tural salvage. He met a lot of
designers and did some interior
decoration work on the side.
Eventually he bit the bullet and
took a job at the Tepper Gal-
leries auction firm. (Talk about
grueling! Anyone who ever sat
through one of the biweekly
1100-lot marathons at Tepper
definitely knows the meaning of
that term.)
Meanwhile, he continued to
work for other dealers until he
finally realized, “If I can do it
for them, I could do it for me,”
he said. “I woke up one morning
and decided I was going to open
a shop in Hudson [New York].”
He put in offers on two build-
ings in Hudson that, “luckily,” he
said, were not successful. “You
go through different iterations in
your life, and it dawned on me
that I wanted a house. In reality I
did not want a store.”
He said subsequent conver-
sations with shop dealers have
convinced him that he made the
right decision. “They said most
of their business doesn’t come
from people walking though
the door.” They told him, “You
don’t need a store because of the
Internet.”
So he quickly sold the apart-
ment he had bought in the Sun-
set Park section of Brooklyn and
bought the house on Kinder-
hook’s main street. He consid-
ers the purchase of the building,
which, he has been told, housed
the town doctor for the better
part of two centuries, to be the
product of luck and a good real
estate agent. “My prerequisite
was a pre-1840 house, a Federal
period house or before. I had
limited funds, but I won’t live in
something I don’t love.”
Finding a place in his price
range was the real challenge.
“In Columbia County,” he said,
“early houses are falling down or
cost millions of dollars. This fit
my budget.” All in all, he said, “I
would much rather pay a mort-
gage than pay a mortgage and
store rent.”
Dawkins said Kinderhook
turns out to be a good location
for a private dealer. Even though,
he noted, “I don’t survive off the
New York City trade,” it’s a rel-
atively easy drive into Manhat-
tan, and it’s only a dozen miles
north of all the antiques activity
in Hudson. He said his village
neighbors have been welcom-
ing—as one might expect in a
town that takes its history seri-
ously—and he has already been
appointed to the village’s His-
toric Preservation Commission.
Dawkins bought his house
in August 2013, moved in a
month later, and by October 24
that year he was in business on
1stdibs. As many dealers will
testify, 1stdibs is not inexpen-
sive, but Dawkins has found
an interesting way to leverage
the costs. He uses Instagram,
which is free, in combination
with 1stdibs’s weekly postings.
Instagram, he said, “has been
very important to my business.
Each Wednesday when First-
dibs posts, I post items from
my inventory on Instagram.”
He said he regularly posts pic-
tures of architecture and interiors
on Instagram, along with pieces
he owns that relate to those
images. He now sells to clients in
Texas, California, and the Mid-
west and said, “My West Coast
and Midwest business came to
me through Instagram,” adding,
“I’m a very visual person, and
Instagram is all about images.”
He noted that when he deals
with clients, he sends them “a
plethora of photos. It’s a lot
of fun when you get to know
someone through a purchase. It
makes you excited to share their
enthusiasm.”
He said his linking of Insta-
gram and 1stdibs didn’t begin as
a carefully thought-out business
plan. “It was very organic the
way it started,” he explained. “I
was proud of something I had
gotten, and people responded.”
In fact, he said he’d like to be
known for how carefully he edits
what he buys. “I’m proudest of
what I don’t offer.”
He said he is not on any other
social media site. That includes
Facebook.
Dawkins hopes in the future
to open a separate showroom
in town, but for now he’ll con-
tinue to meet clients at his home,
and he’ll continue to encourage
them to follow his philosophy:
buy good stuff and use it. “If
you can’t use it, why have it?”
he asked. “They [antiques] were
made to last. They’ve been here
before us and will be here after
us.”
For more information, con-
tact Randal Dawkins, Acrote-
rion, Kinderhook, NY 12106;
phone (917) 656-5863, (518)
site By
appointment.
“Modern art and
period furniture
is my favorite
mix in the
whole world.”
Randal Dawkins.
Circa 1800 Italian looking glass,
just under 4' tall, carved to look
like drapery, $9500. The roun-
dels, meant to imitate tiebacks, are
carved with Classical heads, and the
gray and gilt surface appears to be
original.
A partial view of Dawkins’s front room. Some things are for sale, some
aren’t.