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16-A Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
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FEATURE -
16-A
In the Trade
John Krynick and Francis Nestor of Cottage+
Camp, North Egremont, Massachusetts
by Frank Donegan
P
eople end up in the antiques trade for all sorts
of reasons. When it comes to John Krynick and
Francis Nestor of Cottage+Camp, North Egremont,
Massachusetts, the explanation is straightforward. “If we
didn’t have the business,” Nestor said, “we’d probably be
hoarders. We can’t get away from it. We’re both totally
drawn to objects.”
The objects they’re best known for tend to be quirky
things, often with a folky tilt. Age is sometimes less
important that the compelling visual nature of a piece.
Nestor added, “People think we’re randomly eclectic,
but to us it makes a lot of sense.” He also noted that
his opinion isn’t universally shared. “We were doing a
show one time and overheard one person whispering to
another, ‘Don’t go in there. It’s voodoo.’”
He explained their approach. “We have a bunch of
separate categories.” For instance, he said, “We love
quilts, but you’re not going to see us with a pile of
Nine Patch or Drunkard’s Path quilts.” Some of their
categories are less conventional. Take dogs, for example.
Krynick and Nestor don’t usually buy ceramics, but if a
ceramic piece has a nice dog on it, they’re likely buyers.
“We like dogs,” Nestor said. They also like ephemeral
political stuff as long as it packs a visual punch.
They don’t buy a lot of furniture, but when they do,
it’s more likely because they view the piece as a discrete
sculptural object or as an example of folk art. “We had
a rule,” Nestor said. “If the two of us can’t lift it, we
shouldn’t buy it. We must have been in the business for
ten years and somebody said, ‘Oh my God! You actually
have a case piece.’”
Over the years, the couple has moved the business
around a fair amount: first it was in Boston; then in
Woodstock, New York, for 14 years, during which time
they had two different shops in town over a five-year
period; then a space in Hudson, New York; followed by
a decade in Philadelphia. Recently, they bought an 1887
Baptist church that had run out of Baptists in the historic
village of North Egremont. The church had about 250
members when it was built but was down to six when
Krynick and Nestor purchased the place last summer.
“We moved in on July Fourth,” Nestor said.
It may be a bit of a stretch to call North Egremont
a village. There seems to be only one store—the Old
Egremont Country Store—in the place. But it’s certainly
historic. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places,
and it’s on the route that Colonel Henry Knox took in
the winter of 1775, when his troops dragged 60 tons
of cannons and armaments through the snow to fortify
Dorchester Heights, which allowed George Washington
to drive the British out of Boston.
Fitting out a church as a home is not necessarily an
easy process. This one had a kitchen in the parish meeting
hall, but there was no full bathroom. “We were without
a bathroom for eleven weeks,” Nestor said. When we
visited in late January, he noted, “The port-a-potty just
went down the road.”
The new residence will no doubt affect how they
conduct business. In the past they have often had open
shops, but they won’t have one here. “We looked into
it, but zoning got complicated,” Krynick said. Also, they
used to exhibit at as many as 60 shows a year, but these
days they are down to a small fraction of that number.
Consequently, much will hinge on selling privately to
folks they’ve coaxed to visit them in North Egremont.
“It will be clients who know us,” Krynick said, to which
Nestor added, “We just want it to be friendly and casual.”
He noted that they’ve already had attention from people
who have visited their website.
Krynick handles the website, which is neat and clean,
but “we’re not good at maintaining.” Nestor puts a
positive spin on it. “We’re using it as a calling card. We
do Instagram but don’t work on it as hard as we should.”
For those readers whose memories go back quite a way,
we would point out that this church is a short distance
away from where dealer/artist John Sideli used to sell out
of his church on the other side of the road.
Since the church is essentially one large—2800 square
feet—space, stock and living quarters mingle together.
This may eventually have an effect on the couple’s
inventory. Nestor said, “Now anything we buy we’re
going to have to look at. I think it’s going to affect our
buying.”
As if knowing what to buy was not already hard enough
these days, “The market seems like only special quality
pieces sell at any price point,” Nestor said. “It either sells
so quickly—in a day—you’re amazed; otherwise it’s
still here a year later. A lot of stuff is just not desirable
anymore at any price.”
The couple’s new location should provide good access
to their natural clientele—New Yorkers. Nestor said that
their stock reflects a distinctively New York taste. Their
look isn’t necessarily meant to be cozy. It’s meant to have
an edge. He noted that even when he and Krynick were
doing dozens of shows a year, they always focused on the
New York market, picking venues that were either in the
city or were “wherever New Yorkers went on vacation.”
NorthEgremont fits the latter category. It’s in themiddle
of a large swath of geography where New Yorkers like to
spend their leisure time. It’s on the western edge of the
Berkshires; it’s no more than about an hour from much
of the Hudson valley as well as southern Vermont, and
it’s even closer to the hills of northwestern Connecticut.
When they were still doing many shows, the annual
summer show in Union, Maine, and Stella’s botanical
garden show in Chicago were the farthest afield they
ventured. But those locations were the exception; just
about everything else was centered on New York City.
As is the case with so many dealers, they retain a special
regard for Irene Stella. “We did every show she did at the
[New York City] armory,” Krynick said. “And earlier we
did four or five Stella piers a year.”
Nestor continued, “All the Stellas and Rhinebecks—
that was sort of our milieu, where our stuff fit in the
best.” He recalled the fevered buying at some Stella pier
shows. “When we first started doing the Pier Show, we
would sell like a hundred things. Then we’d go back the
next weekend with a different look.”
Today the shows they do number in the single digits.
Three of them are Brimfield. “We still love Brimfield,”
Nestor said. “There are still people who love antiques
who come, and we still find we do fine.” They are not
partial to a particular Brimfield venue. “We move
around,” Krynick said.
They also exhibit at two of Karen
DiSaia’s shows—her New York Botanical
Garden venue and the Collector’s Fair
during Antiques Week in New Hampshire.
They feel DiSaia has a knack for getting
charities seriously involved in her shows’
successes. Of the New York Botanical
Garden show, for example, Nestor said,
“It’s cool, with an active board. There’s
serious buying at the preview party.” He
said that DiSaia appears to be able to
convince preview-goers that they can’t
just show up for the hors d’oeuvres;
they’re supposed to buy stuff.
They like DiSaia’s Manchester show
because, Nestor said, “It’s like an old
home week for people who like antiques,”
even though as Krynick noted, “They act
like we’re not ‘really’ antiques.” And that
is after they “tighten it up” and edit out
some of their more adventurous purchases.
They are not fans of the old-line charity
shows that had long been the venues to
which dealers aspired. Nestor said, “All
“Now anything we buy we’re
going to have to look at. I think
it’s going to affect our buying.”
This Greta Garbo mask was made by a woman in
Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, Nestor said. He thinks her
name was Ruth Paige or Page. She made a group of
celebrity masks. Nestor and Krynick bought about half a
dozen of them, including Edward G. Robinson and Leslie
Howard. Nestor said Garbo is “the cream of the crop.”
The mask is life size and priced at $1000. The other celeb
masks are substantially less expensive.
Annie the dog—arguably the most irrepressible
member of the family.
Unsigned 1960s marble
sculpture, 21" tall. Nestor said
a retired modern art dealer saw
it and said it was by Étienne
Hajdú (Hungarian/French,
1907-1996), but he’s selling it as
unattributed for $3800.
Pottery tobacco jar, $395. Nestor said,
“We don’t buy Victorian or pottery,
but we buy dogs.”