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Richard W. Stevenson
Vita West Muir, the local impresario whose focused energy has made the Litchfield Jazz Festival a national event and a summertime staple, is also a mother, or to use the elision so much in vogue these days, a “mom.”
Not long ago, Mrs. Muir decided that her son’s living quarters needed help, a major upgrade. The son in question is not a kid but Dr. Owen Muir, a resident in psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who is no doubt far too busy to contemplate interior decoration. “He lives in a big empty apartment in Brooklyn, across the street from his sister, “ said his mother.
From rugs to beds to dining room sets and decorative art, Mrs. Muir got the job done right here in Litchfield County. She scoured auction houses, consignment shops and other off-the-beaten-track stores to find what her son needed without breaking the bank.
“That’s the way to go,” she said. “It’s fun and when you’re done you feel good about it.” Additionally Mrs. Muir makes the point that what you find are “quality things” and that anyone, not just young people, can refresh or renew a room or a house at bargain prices. If you’re willing to invest the time and effort you will save a lot of money compared to buying retail, and “that’s the way to go”.
The three-day “tag sale” at Weston Thorn’s Litchfield Auction Gallery is a favored Muir destination. On the sale’s third day, decrees Mr. Thorn, everything that’s left is marked 70 percent off. “For $32 I got a cocktail table for my son,” said Mrs. Muir, adding that she also scored a high-end dining room set, including eight chairs at a fraction of its original cost.
Litchfield County Auctions was founded in 1994. That’s when Mr. Thorn senior, then an appraiser and antiques dealer with a shop in Bantam, found himself in a house in New Milford examining an estate. The estate’s lawyer asked him if he knew an auctioneer and he said, “Yeah, me.” Years ago he was joined in the business by his son Nicholas, a computer whiz and art expert who held his first tag sale when he was 10 years old.
The gallery succeeds at every level, according to Mr. Thorn, because Litchfield County Auctions reaches “the widest range of local, regional, national and international buyers.” The idea, he said is to always get the most exposure for a consignor’s property. To this end the gallery has developed a three-part system comprising an online auction, a five-day gallery exhibition and a priced estate sale, which Mr. Thorn calls our “ever-popular weekend tag sale.”
According to the gallery this combination reaches a market of “collectors, interior designers, private buyers, art galleries and antique dealers.” And, he might have added, a coterie of inveterate bargain hunters like Vita Muir.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop in Goshen has long attracted parsimonious shoppers as well. For her son’s Brooklyn apartment, Mrs. Muir discovered “a 19th century mahogany dresser with a marble top for $100” at the Albano establishment, taking home as well a “good, old” Coromandel screen for $90 that could function as a room divider in a small apartment. Continued...
Vita West Muir, the local impresario whose focused energy has made the Litchfield Jazz Festival a national event and a summertime staple, is also a mother, or to use the elision so much in vogue these days, a “mom.”
Not long ago, Mrs. Muir decided that her son’s living quarters needed help, a major upgrade. The son in question is not a kid but Dr. Owen Muir, a resident in psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who is no doubt far too busy to contemplate interior decoration. “He lives in a big empty apartment in Brooklyn, across the street from his sister, “ said his mother.
From rugs to beds to dining room sets and decorative art, Mrs. Muir got the job done right here in Litchfield County. She scoured auction houses, consignment shops and other off-the-beaten-track stores to find what her son needed without breaking the bank.
“That’s the way to go,” she said. “It’s fun and when you’re done you feel good about it.” Additionally Mrs. Muir makes the point that what you find are “quality things” and that anyone, not just young people, can refresh or renew a room or a house at bargain prices. If you’re willing to invest the time and effort you will save a lot of money compared to buying retail, and “that’s the way to go”.
The three-day “tag sale” at Weston Thorn’s Litchfield Auction Gallery is a favored Muir destination. On the sale’s third day, decrees Mr. Thorn, everything that’s left is marked 70 percent off. “For $32 I got a cocktail table for my son,” said Mrs. Muir, adding that she also scored a high-end dining room set, including eight chairs at a fraction of its original cost.
Litchfield County Auctions was founded in 1994. That’s when Mr. Thorn senior, then an appraiser and antiques dealer with a shop in Bantam, found himself in a house in New Milford examining an estate. The estate’s lawyer asked him if he knew an auctioneer and he said, “Yeah, me.” Years ago he was joined in the business by his son Nicholas, a computer whiz and art expert who held his first tag sale when he was 10 years old.
The gallery succeeds at every level, according to Mr. Thorn, because Litchfield County Auctions reaches “the widest range of local, regional, national and international buyers.” The idea, he said is to always get the most exposure for a consignor’s property. To this end the gallery has developed a three-part system comprising an online auction, a five-day gallery exhibition and a priced estate sale, which Mr. Thorn calls our “ever-popular weekend tag sale.”
According to the gallery this combination reaches a market of “collectors, interior designers, private buyers, art galleries and antique dealers.” And, he might have added, a coterie of inveterate bargain hunters like Vita Muir.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop in Goshen has long attracted parsimonious shoppers as well. For her son’s Brooklyn apartment, Mrs. Muir discovered “a 19th century mahogany dresser with a marble top for $100” at the Albano establishment, taking home as well a “good, old” Coromandel screen for $90 that could function as a room divider in a small apartment. Continued...
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Mrs. Muir can often be found at the Oriental rug sales at the Litchfield firehouse, where she recently bought a room-sized example for $700. She also found a 15-by-17-foot Sarouk for $1,200, and what the rug trade calls a “palace” size example for a minuscule $750.
The auctioneer for these sales is Wally “Carter” Schmidt, and a typical event featured “over 250 high quality handmade genuine Oriental rugs to be sold to the highest bidder, including Persian silk and wool Tabriz, Heriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Sarouk, Kerman, Kazak, needlepoint, Bidjar, Serapi, Arts and Crafts, Nain, precious silks and others. Sizes range from 2 by 3 to 12 by 18, plus runners, rounds, and squares.”
Oriental rugs have a long history in the U.S. and are particularly popular with people who collect antiques. Americans frequently favor the tribal or village rugs from Persia. Each Persian village developed its own designs, color combinations and weaves, which is how the village or area names like Tabriz, Hamadan and Heriz came to be attached to the rugs.
Hand-woven rugs seem to have been part of human existence forever. George O’Bannon wrote in his book “Oriental Rugs” that “the oldest carpet in existence is the Pazyryk carpet, which was found frozen in a burial tomb in Inner Asia and is dated to the fourth century BC. Its design, dyes and weave are all of the highest quality, indicating that the weaver was knowledgeable and experienced. From this carpet and other data, it is assumed that rug weaving must have evolved by the second millennium BC.”
When she’s not bargain hunting, Mrs. Muir runs the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which next summer is returning to its former venue, the Goshen Fairgrounds. The Waterbury Republican newspaper reported recently, “After suffering audience declines of close to 50 percent and surveying recent and past attendees about what they wanted, Litchfield Jazz Festival organizers will return the 16-year-old annual event to its former home at the Goshen Fairgrounds next summer. The festival spent three years in Kent. Festival founder and its executive and artistic director, Vita West Muir, said Wednesday that the move comes after receiving a loud and clear message from patrons that they expect to experience the three annual days of summer jazz outdoors.”
The Litchfield Jazz Festival debuted in 1996. As Mrs. Muir has written about those early days, “Destiny depends on two things: geography and timing. Well, we had the geography: Litchfield County in the summer time was the second most popular destination for Metro visitors. And we had the timing. The Connecticut Commission on the Arts had just announced a small grant for local groups getting together on efforts to benefit both the organizations and the community. So, we partnered with White Memorial Foundation and planned our first jazz festival for the summer of 1996.
“The following year, with our unmitigated devotion to arts education, we started a jazz camp. It was a day camp for 32 students, ages 13 to 51, and those who could not pay didn’t have to. The basic philosophy of Litchfield Jazz Camp has not changed: it admits all comers, all ages, all instruments but now they stay overnight for up to a month. ”
Busy as she is, there is always time for good deals. “My fur coat gave up the ghost after 25 years and I was cold. At the Emporium consignment shop in Bantam I found and snapped up a Blackglama mink coat for $400. I just happened to walk in,” said Ms. Muir, as always a big believer in destiny.
For more information on Litchfield County Auctions, see the Web site at www.litchfieldcountyauctions.com.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop can be reached at 860-491-4677, and The Emporium can be reached at 860-361-6097.
The auctioneer for these sales is Wally “Carter” Schmidt, and a typical event featured “over 250 high quality handmade genuine Oriental rugs to be sold to the highest bidder, including Persian silk and wool Tabriz, Heriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Sarouk, Kerman, Kazak, needlepoint, Bidjar, Serapi, Arts and Crafts, Nain, precious silks and others. Sizes range from 2 by 3 to 12 by 18, plus runners, rounds, and squares.”
Oriental rugs have a long history in the U.S. and are particularly popular with people who collect antiques. Americans frequently favor the tribal or village rugs from Persia. Each Persian village developed its own designs, color combinations and weaves, which is how the village or area names like Tabriz, Hamadan and Heriz came to be attached to the rugs.
Hand-woven rugs seem to have been part of human existence forever. George O’Bannon wrote in his book “Oriental Rugs” that “the oldest carpet in existence is the Pazyryk carpet, which was found frozen in a burial tomb in Inner Asia and is dated to the fourth century BC. Its design, dyes and weave are all of the highest quality, indicating that the weaver was knowledgeable and experienced. From this carpet and other data, it is assumed that rug weaving must have evolved by the second millennium BC.”
When she’s not bargain hunting, Mrs. Muir runs the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which next summer is returning to its former venue, the Goshen Fairgrounds. The Waterbury Republican newspaper reported recently, “After suffering audience declines of close to 50 percent and surveying recent and past attendees about what they wanted, Litchfield Jazz Festival organizers will return the 16-year-old annual event to its former home at the Goshen Fairgrounds next summer. The festival spent three years in Kent. Festival founder and its executive and artistic director, Vita West Muir, said Wednesday that the move comes after receiving a loud and clear message from patrons that they expect to experience the three annual days of summer jazz outdoors.”
The Litchfield Jazz Festival debuted in 1996. As Mrs. Muir has written about those early days, “Destiny depends on two things: geography and timing. Well, we had the geography: Litchfield County in the summer time was the second most popular destination for Metro visitors. And we had the timing. The Connecticut Commission on the Arts had just announced a small grant for local groups getting together on efforts to benefit both the organizations and the community. So, we partnered with White Memorial Foundation and planned our first jazz festival for the summer of 1996.
“The following year, with our unmitigated devotion to arts education, we started a jazz camp. It was a day camp for 32 students, ages 13 to 51, and those who could not pay didn’t have to. The basic philosophy of Litchfield Jazz Camp has not changed: it admits all comers, all ages, all instruments but now they stay overnight for up to a month. ”
Busy as she is, there is always time for good deals. “My fur coat gave up the ghost after 25 years and I was cold. At the Emporium consignment shop in Bantam I found and snapped up a Blackglama mink coat for $400. I just happened to walk in,” said Ms. Muir, as always a big believer in destiny.
For more information on Litchfield County Auctions, see the Web site at www.litchfieldcountyauctions.com.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop can be reached at 860-491-4677, and The Emporium can be reached at 860-361-6097.
Richard W. Stevenson
Vita West Muir, the local impresario whose focused energy has made the Litchfield Jazz Festival a national event and a summertime staple, is also a mother, or to use the elision so much in vogue these days, a “mom.”
Not long ago, Mrs. Muir decided that her son’s living quarters needed help, a major upgrade. The son in question is not a kid but Dr. Owen Muir, a resident in psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who is no doubt far too busy to contemplate interior decoration. “He lives in a big empty apartment in Brooklyn, across the street from his sister, “ said his mother.
From rugs to beds to dining room sets and decorative art, Mrs. Muir got the job done right here in Litchfield County. She scoured auction houses, consignment shops and other off-the-beaten-track stores to find what her son needed without breaking the bank.
“That’s the way to go,” she said. “It’s fun and when you’re done you feel good about it.” Additionally Mrs. Muir makes the point that what you find are “quality things” and that anyone, not just young people, can refresh or renew a room or a house at bargain prices. If you’re willing to invest the time and effort you will save a lot of money compared to buying retail, and “that’s the way to go”.
The three-day “tag sale” at Weston Thorn’s Litchfield Auction Gallery is a favored Muir destination. On the sale’s third day, decrees Mr. Thorn, everything that’s left is marked 70 percent off. “For $32 I got a cocktail table for my son,” said Mrs. Muir, adding that she also scored a high-end dining room set, including eight chairs at a fraction of its original cost.
Litchfield County Auctions was founded in 1994. That’s when Mr. Thorn senior, then an appraiser and antiques dealer with a shop in Bantam, found himself in a house in New Milford examining an estate. The estate’s lawyer asked him if he knew an auctioneer and he said, “Yeah, me.” Years ago he was joined in the business by his son Nicholas, a computer whiz and art expert who held his first tag sale when he was 10 years old.
The gallery succeeds at every level, according to Mr. Thorn, because Litchfield County Auctions reaches “the widest range of local, regional, national and international buyers.” The idea, he said is to always get the most exposure for a consignor’s property. To this end the gallery has developed a three-part system comprising an online auction, a five-day gallery exhibition and a priced estate sale, which Mr. Thorn calls our “ever-popular weekend tag sale.”
According to the gallery this combination reaches a market of “collectors, interior designers, private buyers, art galleries and antique dealers.” And, he might have added, a coterie of inveterate bargain hunters like Vita Muir.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop in Goshen has long attracted parsimonious shoppers as well. For her son’s Brooklyn apartment, Mrs. Muir discovered “a 19th century mahogany dresser with a marble top for $100” at the Albano establishment, taking home as well a “good, old” Coromandel screen for $90 that could function as a room divider in a small apartment.
Mrs. Muir can often be found at the Oriental rug sales at the Litchfield firehouse, where she recently bought a room-sized example for $700. She also found a 15-by-17-foot Sarouk for $1,200, and what the rug trade calls a “palace” size example for a minuscule $750.
The auctioneer for these sales is Wally “Carter” Schmidt, and a typical event featured “over 250 high quality handmade genuine Oriental rugs to be sold to the highest bidder, including Persian silk and wool Tabriz, Heriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Sarouk, Kerman, Kazak, needlepoint, Bidjar, Serapi, Arts and Crafts, Nain, precious silks and others. Sizes range from 2 by 3 to 12 by 18, plus runners, rounds, and squares.”
Oriental rugs have a long history in the U.S. and are particularly popular with people who collect antiques. Americans frequently favor the tribal or village rugs from Persia. Each Persian village developed its own designs, color combinations and weaves, which is how the village or area names like Tabriz, Hamadan and Heriz came to be attached to the rugs.
Hand-woven rugs seem to have been part of human existence forever. George O’Bannon wrote in his book “Oriental Rugs” that “the oldest carpet in existence is the Pazyryk carpet, which was found frozen in a burial tomb in Inner Asia and is dated to the fourth century BC. Its design, dyes and weave are all of the highest quality, indicating that the weaver was knowledgeable and experienced. From this carpet and other data, it is assumed that rug weaving must have evolved by the second millennium BC.”
When she’s not bargain hunting, Mrs. Muir runs the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which next summer is returning to its former venue, the Goshen Fairgrounds. The Waterbury Republican newspaper reported recently, “After suffering audience declines of close to 50 percent and surveying recent and past attendees about what they wanted, Litchfield Jazz Festival organizers will return the 16-year-old annual event to its former home at the Goshen Fairgrounds next summer. The festival spent three years in Kent. Festival founder and its executive and artistic director, Vita West Muir, said Wednesday that the move comes after receiving a loud and clear message from patrons that they expect to experience the three annual days of summer jazz outdoors.”
The Litchfield Jazz Festival debuted in 1996. As Mrs. Muir has written about those early days, “Destiny depends on two things: geography and timing. Well, we had the geography: Litchfield County in the summer time was the second most popular destination for Metro visitors. And we had the timing. The Connecticut Commission on the Arts had just announced a small grant for local groups getting together on efforts to benefit both the organizations and the community. So, we partnered with White Memorial Foundation and planned our first jazz festival for the summer of 1996.
“The following year, with our unmitigated devotion to arts education, we started a jazz camp. It was a day camp for 32 students, ages 13 to 51, and those who could not pay didn’t have to. The basic philosophy of Litchfield Jazz Camp has not changed: it admits all comers, all ages, all instruments but now they stay overnight for up to a month. ”
Busy as she is, there is always time for good deals. “My fur coat gave up the ghost after 25 years and I was cold. At the Emporium consignment shop in Bantam I found and snapped up a Blackglama mink coat for $400. I just happened to walk in,” said Ms. Muir, as always a big believer in destiny.
For more information on Litchfield County Auctions, see the Web site at www.litchfieldcountyauctions.com.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop can be reached at 860-491-4677, and The Emporium can be reached at 860-361-6097.
Vita West Muir, the local impresario whose focused energy has made the Litchfield Jazz Festival a national event and a summertime staple, is also a mother, or to use the elision so much in vogue these days, a “mom.”
Not long ago, Mrs. Muir decided that her son’s living quarters needed help, a major upgrade. The son in question is not a kid but Dr. Owen Muir, a resident in psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who is no doubt far too busy to contemplate interior decoration. “He lives in a big empty apartment in Brooklyn, across the street from his sister, “ said his mother.
From rugs to beds to dining room sets and decorative art, Mrs. Muir got the job done right here in Litchfield County. She scoured auction houses, consignment shops and other off-the-beaten-track stores to find what her son needed without breaking the bank.
“That’s the way to go,” she said. “It’s fun and when you’re done you feel good about it.” Additionally Mrs. Muir makes the point that what you find are “quality things” and that anyone, not just young people, can refresh or renew a room or a house at bargain prices. If you’re willing to invest the time and effort you will save a lot of money compared to buying retail, and “that’s the way to go”.
The three-day “tag sale” at Weston Thorn’s Litchfield Auction Gallery is a favored Muir destination. On the sale’s third day, decrees Mr. Thorn, everything that’s left is marked 70 percent off. “For $32 I got a cocktail table for my son,” said Mrs. Muir, adding that she also scored a high-end dining room set, including eight chairs at a fraction of its original cost.
Litchfield County Auctions was founded in 1994. That’s when Mr. Thorn senior, then an appraiser and antiques dealer with a shop in Bantam, found himself in a house in New Milford examining an estate. The estate’s lawyer asked him if he knew an auctioneer and he said, “Yeah, me.” Years ago he was joined in the business by his son Nicholas, a computer whiz and art expert who held his first tag sale when he was 10 years old.
The gallery succeeds at every level, according to Mr. Thorn, because Litchfield County Auctions reaches “the widest range of local, regional, national and international buyers.” The idea, he said is to always get the most exposure for a consignor’s property. To this end the gallery has developed a three-part system comprising an online auction, a five-day gallery exhibition and a priced estate sale, which Mr. Thorn calls our “ever-popular weekend tag sale.”
According to the gallery this combination reaches a market of “collectors, interior designers, private buyers, art galleries and antique dealers.” And, he might have added, a coterie of inveterate bargain hunters like Vita Muir.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop in Goshen has long attracted parsimonious shoppers as well. For her son’s Brooklyn apartment, Mrs. Muir discovered “a 19th century mahogany dresser with a marble top for $100” at the Albano establishment, taking home as well a “good, old” Coromandel screen for $90 that could function as a room divider in a small apartment.
Mrs. Muir can often be found at the Oriental rug sales at the Litchfield firehouse, where she recently bought a room-sized example for $700. She also found a 15-by-17-foot Sarouk for $1,200, and what the rug trade calls a “palace” size example for a minuscule $750.
The auctioneer for these sales is Wally “Carter” Schmidt, and a typical event featured “over 250 high quality handmade genuine Oriental rugs to be sold to the highest bidder, including Persian silk and wool Tabriz, Heriz, Kashan, Isfahan, Sarouk, Kerman, Kazak, needlepoint, Bidjar, Serapi, Arts and Crafts, Nain, precious silks and others. Sizes range from 2 by 3 to 12 by 18, plus runners, rounds, and squares.”
Oriental rugs have a long history in the U.S. and are particularly popular with people who collect antiques. Americans frequently favor the tribal or village rugs from Persia. Each Persian village developed its own designs, color combinations and weaves, which is how the village or area names like Tabriz, Hamadan and Heriz came to be attached to the rugs.
Hand-woven rugs seem to have been part of human existence forever. George O’Bannon wrote in his book “Oriental Rugs” that “the oldest carpet in existence is the Pazyryk carpet, which was found frozen in a burial tomb in Inner Asia and is dated to the fourth century BC. Its design, dyes and weave are all of the highest quality, indicating that the weaver was knowledgeable and experienced. From this carpet and other data, it is assumed that rug weaving must have evolved by the second millennium BC.”
When she’s not bargain hunting, Mrs. Muir runs the Litchfield Jazz Festival, which next summer is returning to its former venue, the Goshen Fairgrounds. The Waterbury Republican newspaper reported recently, “After suffering audience declines of close to 50 percent and surveying recent and past attendees about what they wanted, Litchfield Jazz Festival organizers will return the 16-year-old annual event to its former home at the Goshen Fairgrounds next summer. The festival spent three years in Kent. Festival founder and its executive and artistic director, Vita West Muir, said Wednesday that the move comes after receiving a loud and clear message from patrons that they expect to experience the three annual days of summer jazz outdoors.”
The Litchfield Jazz Festival debuted in 1996. As Mrs. Muir has written about those early days, “Destiny depends on two things: geography and timing. Well, we had the geography: Litchfield County in the summer time was the second most popular destination for Metro visitors. And we had the timing. The Connecticut Commission on the Arts had just announced a small grant for local groups getting together on efforts to benefit both the organizations and the community. So, we partnered with White Memorial Foundation and planned our first jazz festival for the summer of 1996.
“The following year, with our unmitigated devotion to arts education, we started a jazz camp. It was a day camp for 32 students, ages 13 to 51, and those who could not pay didn’t have to. The basic philosophy of Litchfield Jazz Camp has not changed: it admits all comers, all ages, all instruments but now they stay overnight for up to a month. ”
Busy as she is, there is always time for good deals. “My fur coat gave up the ghost after 25 years and I was cold. At the Emporium consignment shop in Bantam I found and snapped up a Blackglama mink coat for $400. I just happened to walk in,” said Ms. Muir, as always a big believer in destiny.
For more information on Litchfield County Auctions, see the Web site at www.litchfieldcountyauctions.com.
Lonnie Albano’s Barn Shop can be reached at 860-491-4677, and The Emporium can be reached at 860-361-6097.
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