Furniture From Far Away -- Shipments Of Antiques Offer Buyers Something Old And Unique

WHEN D.P. AND JANICE Van Blaricom saw the gilt bronze candelabras with their winged figures at St. Charles Place two years ago, they didn't hesitate. They saw through the dried candlewax, the nicks and damaged finishes. The shop owner didn't even have them out of the truck yet, she recalls. Several years and many dollars later, restoration complete, they are prizes in a houseful of locally discovered treasures brought here from abroad.

Seattle-area dealers have been importing furniture and accessories from Europe for years to satisfy Northwesterners hungry for something unique.

For the seller, the journey from old world to new is full of opportunities, obstacles and unpredictable delays. Much of this history is unknown to the browser, the buyer and the collector as he or she puts signature to charge-card slip and loads the pickup truck to bring that prized possession home.

THINK OF IT AS RECYCLING

Carl Smith of Antique Liquidators has been importing furniture since the early 1970s. In 1974 he moved to Westlake Avenue, where he has 23,000 square feet on three floors - nearly an acre of furniture. Antique Liquidators sells to the general public, interior designers and other antique dealers locally and in Alaska, Japan and Hawaii.

Most stock comes from England and Denmark, where buyers Smith has known for years go to warehouses, private homes and auctions to select about 400 pieces of furniture a month, enough to load three

40-foot vans. Occasionally the shipments also contain furniture from Belgium, France, Austria and other countries that come through British markets.

While every van may contain some unusual and highly desirable items that can truly be called antique because they are more than 100 years old, Smith's bread-and-butter is good quality old-growth wood furniture - tables, chairs, wardrobes and chests with mirrors that offer the customer a fair option to new furniture.

"I'm not looking for exotic things that will only accommodate a few people," Smith said. Typical wardrobes sell here for an average of $200 to $600, and tables range from $120 to $400. Smith likes the idea that he is recycling old furniture instead of cutting down trees for new items. He refinishes about 60 percent of it because, he says, Seattle-area buyers seem to like brighter and lighter furniture that counters the dark, cloudy Northwest winter.

Smith and other dealers believe that quality furniture generally keeps or increases its value over time. And then there's the strength and character of old, sturdy pieces. They get credit for just being around so long and standing the taste test of time.

"I love old wood," Smith says.

DEALERS "DEAL"

But there is some uncertainty to the business. Unlike the sofas, tables and chairs at the local furniture store, the prices of Smith's antiques are not set in stone. In the antique business, price is sometimes negotiable. The sticker price represents a mark-up of 30 percent or more above the real costs of bringing the furniture over - buying it, refinishing it if needed, paying for dock fees and freight plus inland hauling from the warehouse to the dock on both ends, duties and custom-house broker fees. A container full of furniture represents a $15,000 to $100,000 investment. The related cost of shipping a 40-foot container of English furniture from dock to dock may run about $5,000. But because they need to constantly move inventory for new shipments, dealers "deal."

Charles Divelbiss, the owner of St. Charles Place in downtown Renton, has been in business since his father opened the store in 1973. Over 20 years, Divelbiss has nurtured contacts overseas who look for the quality pieces they know he will buy.

"It might take as long as six months to collect the kinds of things I am looking for. They will set them aside for me." A large portion of his early stock was Austrian and French 18th- and 19th-century furniture. But the weakening of the dollar on the world market reversed the flow of those items. He now can make more money selling locally found European furniture in foreign countries.

He and other importers worry about a major new obstacle to their businesses. In March, there was an abrupt end to ocean-going shipping from Europe to the Pacific Northwest ports of Portland, Tacoma and Seattle because the market was not a profitable one for shippers. California and Vancouver, B.C., have become the entry ports for these goods, which then are trucked to Seattle. Dealers worry about the wear and tear on fragile cargo, and the increased costs - estimated at between 20 percent and 50 percent more - that may force them to raise their prices.

Divelbiss has been in business long enough to see trends come and go. "When I started, I was selling Victorian furniture, and there were very few buyers. Nobody wanted it in Europe. Arts-and-crafts was considered junk. True French and Austrian art deco, thought upon as value there, wasn't recognized here. Now it's worth a fortune."

Divelbiss has a word of advice for would-be buyers of antiques and old furniture, much of which is one-of-a-kind. "You have one chance. If you like it, and the price is right, you buy it. Otherwise, you may find yourself looking for an alternative for years."

D.P. and Janice Van Blaricom have taken his advice on countless occasions to furnish a Bellevue home with one of the largest collections of French period furniture in the area. Janice Van Blaricom began collecting as a college student. "On a trip to California, I saw a Boule table with fabulous ormulu, and I made a detour on the way back to pick it up. I drove home with the piece in the back seat and the top down."

The next major piece she bought was an armoire from St. Charles Place. Since then, their home has filled with ormulu clocks, Louis XVI and German rococo chests and armoires, gilt bronze candelabras and French empire tables.

Van Blaricom echoes the sentiments of many collectors. "We get a lot of enjoyment out of the quest - the search for a particular piece." As to the worth of an item, Janice Van Blaricom says, "It's only worth the value assigned to it if it's worth it to you. I have paid more for a piece that I loved and had to have." One of the benefits of developing a long-standing relationship with Divelbiss has been the comfort knowing that "if I tire of something, he'll take it back and give me a credit toward anything else. He trades. In essence, he makes it mistake-proof."

FROM OAK TO PINE

Pedro Pelayo is one of Seattle's long-time dealers of English and Scandinavian furniture, filling two stores in the Greenwood area. He watches the local economy closely because when people are laid off from jobs, they don't buy furniture.

Pelayo is out of the country on buying trips almost as much as he is in town. For a while, he even went to Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia. Now he has a Danish dealer, born in Hungary, who brings pieces to Denmark, where Pelayo selects and ships it. Because Pelayo handles a large volume of furniture, he deals with wholesalers overseas.

It wasn't always that way. The first few years, when he was just learning about European markets, it took four weeks. "Now, in three days I can buy two 40-foot containers." There is something in his shops for everyone, from chests of humble pine to aristocratic columned and pedimented armoires, priced accordingly in the low hundreds upward into many thousands of dollars.

The notion of negotiating a price doesn't sit well for Pelayo. "They go to Nordstrom, they like this, they buy, and that's it, while they come here, they like it and they want the best price you can give them. Eight out of 10 ask for the best price."

He has seen Seattle buyers shift their interest from oak to pine furniture, and the increasing popularity of armoires for use as entertainment centers.

While Pelayo's reputation locally has been built on Scandinavian pine furniture, he is not the only dealer who recognized its popularity. Ib and Alaina Knoblauch, owners of Danish and Swedish Antiques in Kirkland, take three to four trips to Denmark and Sweden each year to stock their 5,000-square-foot shop and warehouse. They drive more than 4,000 miles in three weeks, and buy from 60 to 70 people in both countries.

The fact that Ib Knoblauch was born and raised in Denmark and worked in Sweden opened doors to dealers in rural areas who don't speak English. But what they buy and how much is often a matter of the strength of the dollar. Ib Knoblauch recalls, "With the exchange last November, it cost $15,000 more than the same container would have cost six months before. Fortunately, the situation has improved now."

Another difficulty has been the restriction by the Swedish government of antiques for export. Authentic antiques are now harder to bring out of the country. An export permit from the National Museum is required for clocks, art and important furniture, and the process can be time-consuming.

Danish and Swedish Antiques is filled with pine tables, chests, armoires, trunks and china cupboards, ranging from rural and primitive to very formal and finished-looking. "We handpick everything," says Alaina Knoblauch. "That seems to make a difference to our customers."

It did to Thornton and Marty Gale, who had never been antique collectors. But they were drawn to the light color of pine furniture in the Kirkland shop, seeing it as a way to lighten their Mercer Island house, which is surrounded by trees.

While they had looked elsewhere, they liked knowing that everything was hand-selected by the owners. Says Marty Gale, "They have an eye for it. When you buy from them you have a high level of trust." The Gales purchased an armoire in the hall, and went on to acquire two chests for the kitchen, and a painted blue chest and bench for the living room.

Julia Mattson has gone a step further in furnishing her turn-of-the-century home on north Queen Anne Hill. It has become a showcase for pine furniture, and walking into it is like stepping into a French country retreat of another era. A mix of refined and rustic pine chests, cabinets, beds and tables from Denmark, Sweden, England, France and Czechoslovakia are found in the living room, bedroom and bath. Literally everything but the kitchen sink (and the refrigerator and stove) is framed and supported with antique-pine cabinetry in the refurbished kitchen. Even in Mattson's attic studio (she makes leotards for the ballet) the cutting table and storage chests are finds from Pelayo adapted for her needs, like the old pine fishing-tackle box she uses to store threads.

Her interest in pine began back in 1981, when she bought a Dutch armoire and a telephone cabinet at Partners in Time. "From then on, it was a landslide," she recalls. "When I found Pedro Pelayo, I was in heaven. He had two places. He had everything. It was like fairyland to me."

Lawrence Kreisman is author of six publications on regional architecture and historic preservation. He writes regularly for Pacific. Mark Harrison is a Seattle Times photographer.

ANTIQUES EVERYWHERE

Here is a select list of dealers who carry a general line of European furniture in various price categories. In addition, there are numerous "carriage trade" antique stores, those that specialize in particular countries, periods and styles, and those that showcase locally found estate furniture.

-- Antique Distributors 507 Westlake Ave. N. Seattle, WA 98109 622-0555. -- Antique Importers 640 Alaskan Way Seattle, WA 98104 628-8905 and 155 E. Sunset Way Issaquah, WA 98027 392-7609. -- Antique Liquidators 503 Westlake Ave. N. Seattle, WA 98109 623-2740. -- Antique Warehouse, Inc. 1400 Alaskan Way Seattle, WA 98101 624-4683. -- Danish-Swedish Antiques 207 Kirkland Avenue Kirkland, WA 98033 822-7899. -- Hageman-McBride Antiques 119 S. Jackson Street Seattle, WA 98104 233-0641. -- Jean Williams Antiques 115 S. Jackson Street Seattle, WA 98104 622-1110. -- Partners in Time 1201 Second Avenue Seattle, WA 98101 343-3300. -- Pelayo Antiques 7601 Greenwood Ave. N. and 8421 Greenwood Ave. N. Seattle, WA 98103 789-1333 or 789-1999. -- St. Charles Place 230 Wells Ave. S. Renton WA 98055 226-8427. -- Seattle Antique Market, Inc. 1400 Alaskan Way Seattle, WA 98101 623-6115.