Maine Antique Digest, March 2021

58 Maine Antique Digest, March 2021 FEATURE F Hanging with Andrew Spindler by Julie Schlenger Adell “The world has embraced cross-collecting.” W e are all spending much more time now in our houses and apartments because of COVID- 19. Because we all might enjoy staring at someone else’s walls for a change, this column gives our readers an idea of what some of their colleagues, fellow collectors, and other readers surround themselves with in their abodes. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Interacting with dealers at their shops and at art, antiques, and design shows is a huge part of the collecting universe. Gaining knowledge and insight, receiving updates, and even hearing a bit of gossip can help collectors discern what and when and why to buy and sell. One dealer who has maintained his shop for over 20 years while continuing to exhibit at shows is Andrew Spindler of Andrew Spindler Antiques & Design, Essex, Massachusetts. The Boston-born Brown University graduate is the baby of triplet boys, each born five minutes apart. “Being a triplet is a huge part of my identity,” the erudite and soft-spoken dealer said during an hour-long phone interview, explaining, “I’m an empathetic person. I like to nurture people, objects, my dog.” One brother is his identical twin, while the other is fraternal. An older sister rounds out his siblings. He grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and his parents “bought and loved antiques.” His mother “liked pretty things, like china and crystal,” and his father, an MIT-educated engineer, liked architecture. His grandfather painted. Andrew Spindler Antiques & Design is located on Essex’s Main Street. He owns the building as well. “There are many fewer shops on the street than there were when I opened almost twenty-three years ago,” he pointed out. “I love the interaction with people and the creative mise en scène . It’s an eclectic shop. I look at antiques and art as great design and how they visually relate to one another.” Daphne, Andrew’s Boston terrier rescue, with whom he is “besotted,” was adopted four and a half years ago. He estimates her age between nine and ten years old. “She makes me laugh every day. She has a wonderful disposition. She’s the ‘shop dog.’” Spindler is a self-described nerd and brainiac. His undergraduate degree in Spanish literature and master’s degree fromYale University in LatinAmerican literature equipped him to become a professor, yet he realized he wanted to be “more creative, more independent and freer.” A year in London attending Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s “Works of Art” course, where he studied art, silver, and furniture, gave him the connoisseurship to become more object oriented. Upon his return, he spent two years working for the fine English furniture dealer Tom Devenish of DevenishAntiques on Madison Avenue and 74th Street in New York City. “He had uncompromising standards about quality. He was self- educated. We had a love-hate relationship.” However, Andrew’s “baptism through fire” at Devenish and an eventual “Devil Wears Prada” moment with the boss expedited his exit. Soon thereafter he opened a shop in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and a year later he relocated it to Essex. “The world has embraced cross-collecting,” the affable dealer noted. Since opening the shop in Essex in 1998, “I haven’t been single-mindedly focused. I like and offer all periods and places of origin. I love Art Deco. I love Arts and Crafts. There’s a sense of adventure and kind of energy when things turn over” in the shop, he said. Andrew and his husband, contemporary art dealer Hiram Butler, who owns Hiram Butler Gallery in Houston, Texas, collect Greek antiquities together as a sideline. They each fly back and forth every other week. “Business has been surprisingly strong,” Andrew said when asked how the pandemic has affected his shop. “People are focused on their houses. The real estate market here has exploded. People aren’t spending money on travel and restaurants, so they’re upgrading their houses; they’re not deferring. They’re buying. I have hand sanitizers and air purifiers in the shop. Sourcing has become harder, however.” The shop is not far from his house, a 1573-square-foot, one-story structure built in 1933, set on several acres that overlook a quarry. It is one of seven others marketed in the 1930s by the W. & J. Sloane department store—“Sloane’s Little House”—for which one bought the plans, built it, and filled it with Sloane’s furniture, he explained. He purchased it in 2017 and spent eight months renovating, adding big windows and updating electrics and the kitchen. The move from a stone Arts and Crafts-style house in Gloucester, with its “moody atmosphere and rich paneling,” to this one with its barrel-vaulted Neoclassical 18' high living room ceiling allowed Andrew to “bring the green from outside inside,” rendering the mood “fresh and bright.” (The room reminded him of the “New Room” at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, he said.) The walls are painted crisp white, and touches of blue and green, along with a glossy green-painted kitchen floor, allow the small house to read much larger. The quarry is fed by natural springs, the water is clear and fresh, and before his shop reopened after the COVID- 19 lockdown, Andrew said he spent “an enormous amount of time walking, rowing, and staring out these windows to the world beyond my house.” Indeed. Andrew Spindler and Daphne, his Boston terrier. When he adopted her almost five years ago, the rescue organization estimated her age between four and five years old. She is the “shop dog.” The apple-green Murano chandelier is custom made, based on a design from the 1930s. The partially seen set of six mahogany shield- back chairs by the window, around an Eero Saarinen Tulip table, is German, from the 1930s. The chairs came from a Park Avenue, New York City, apartment and were bought as is. In the corner is a 19th-century Grand Tour bronze titled Exalted Youth . The green Josef Albers-like print to the left of the door leading to the kitchen is by Kate Shepherd. Seen on the windowsill is a bronze sculpture by Walker Hancock of a figure doing a handstand. In the renovated kitchen with its bright green-painted floor is a custom- made steel island. “I wanted to look in from the living room and see a Donald Judd-like block.” Seen on the wall is a framed English grammar teaching poster, American, from 1910. The tree branches explain sentence structure.