Hidden treasures
Posted on Tuesday, March 14, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/148688/
BOTKINBURG — Don Keathley has brought the world to Botkinburg.
It may not look like much from the outside, just a jumble of slightly shabby barn-red wood and metal buildings. But inside, the Antique Warehouse is an international furniture showplace.
Tables, chairs, desks, buffets and more antiques from the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and other European countries fill 90, 000 square feet of space. There’s even a French Renaissance bench from 1592.
Customers, online and on wheels, come from all corners of the world to check out the goods in Keathley’s seven warehouses and five showrooms.
“This place is absolutely ridiculous,” one awed shopper said into his cell phone as he wandered aisles filled with an 1840 s oak carved cabinet from northern France ($ 8, 474 ), hand-carved oak side tables circa 1870 s Ireland ($ 874 ) and late-1800 s Italian hand-painted pottery ($ 398 ). “They have thousands of things here.”
So many things, in fact, that store maps are provided. But Keathley’s advice to customers: Enjoy the hunt.
Keathley has been hunting antiques for most of his life. Born near Quitman, he grew up in California, where his father, John, moved the family after finding few job opportunities when he returned home from World War II. John Keathley opened an antiques store in Berkeley, Calif., in the 1950 s.
Don Keathley worked with his father for many years before returning to Arkansas and opening up shop in Conway in the early ’ 80 s. But the town wasn’t the same one he remembered; it had spread out and grown too much for his taste. So in 1985 Keathley packed up and moved about 50 miles north up U. S. 65. Landing in tiny Botkinburg in northern Van Buren County, he said, was simply a “matter of economics.” He got a good deal on an old automobile repair station and the surrounding land.
NEW WORLD MEETS OLD Combining the best of old and new, Keathley still uses contacts his father made during the war. He takes advantage of the latest technology, using his computer to view images transmitted from his buyers’ cell phones before giving a thumbs up or down on some pieces. Doing business this way has cut down on the number and lengths of trips Keathley makes to Europe each year.
He also uses a computer program to calculate the cost of each object. Taking into consideration the price he pays for the piece, the current strength of the dollar, shipping costs, government-ordered fumigation costs and other expenses, the computer spits out a coded price tag for each item. At a glance, Keathley can tell how much room he has to haggle with customers.
After letting a bronze owl that had been in residence for several years fly out the door for $ 395, Keathley confessed, “I don’t always think about how much it would cost today to replace a piece that’s been here a long time. I probably should.”
But when he couldn’t bargain on a $ 30, 000 French dining room set, the potential buyer groused that he didn’t pay that much for his car. Keathley made him an offer — free delivery to Florida — and the deal was sealed. From Queen Anne to Art Deco, the warehouse offers something for every antiques shopper. But because most customers aren’t experts, reproductions are tagged as such. “If we know it to be new,” Keathley says, “it’s marked accordingly.” Many customers, he says, tell him how much they appreciate that.
A WAREHOUSE TOUR Keathley shrugs off the chill as he strolls through the buildings. “It is a warehouse,” he notes. “People have to expect it to be cold in winter.” It must not bother shoppers too much; Keathley says sales are often best during winter months, especially February. He points out a desk with an “ebonized” finish, popular in the Victorian era. It’s heading for the on-site restoration shop, where his crew of 15 will handstrip it and stain it to a more natural look.
He opens the doors of a handsome French armoire from the late 1800 s to reveal a gaping hole in the back.
Why anyone would carve up such a piece is anyone’s guess, but Keathley ventures that it was probably handed down from grandma and was “just a piece of furniture.”
“I think someone turned it into an entertainment center, probably in the ’ 50 s or ’ 60 s.” He bases that guess on the tan vinyl padding and row of upholstery tacks added to the inside of the doors. “They probably had a sofa to match this.”
It, too, is heading for the restoration shop. Several buffets are already lined up there, some awaiting transformation into bathroom vanities, a popular trend the past few years.
He says it doesn’t bother him to cut a hole in an antique buffet to accommodate a sink. Well, not much anyway. “If it’s an oak top in good shape, I might try to talk them into letting us replace the top with new wood. That way they can keep the old and put it back if they ever want to,” he says.
In Warehouse 3, he taps on a buffet, saying, “This is Belgian. It shouldn’t be in here.”
That’s because “in here” is one of the three warehouses earmarked for furniture from England, Ireland and Scotland. Those pieces, Keathley explains, are of a smaller scale than the ones from France, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, which are in three other warehouses.
Keathley talks easily about mahogany, oak, cherry, woods, finishes, stains. He knows his antiques and he’s careful about what comes into his buildings. “No flea market, nailed up, glued up junk,” makes its way in. Nor does much Italian furniture because, he says, the country’s climate lends itself to wormwood damage.
And he also has to consider what will sell from his showrooms. He keeps in mind that tourists buzzing up U. S. 65 to Branson tend to pick up small collectibles. And that shoppers in the area do not seem to favor 1920 s- ’ 40 s Art Deco items; he still carries a few, if only because he likes them.
“Day in, day out, stained glass is the biggest seller,” Keathley says. One building is filled with the colorful, intricate glasswork. Keeping a minimum of 5, 000 pieces on hand, the Antique Warehouse has the largest stock of stained glass in the United States, Keathley believes.
But don’t expect to see that in any advertisement. Keathley doesn’t much bother with that. “The highway is my biggest advertiser.” Thousands of cars use it per day, so he figures that, along with a few billboards and a couple of magazine and newspaper stories, is enough. SHOPLIFTERS WILL BE HOG-TIED
Keathley knows from experience that the busy highway can also fuel a crook’s dreams of riches and an easy getaway route, and he is security conscious. Cameras are installed in all the showrooms; access to the network of buildings is available through only the main building; most small collectibles are kept close to the front desk.
And a story from the local paper is posted as a warning to would-be shoplifters: In 2002, a thief grabbed a lamp from a front table and bolted out the door. Keathley’s brother Lyn, the shop manager, and employee Gary Wolf jumped into their trucks and, unbeknownst to the thief, the chase was on. The two trailed the man several miles up U. S. 65, while calling the sheriff’s office on their cell phones. When the suspect pulled off the road, still unaware he was being pursued, Wolf and Lyn Keathley got their man. Deputies arrived on the scene to find the suspect hog-tied.
That theft was unusual, Don Keathley laughs. Usually, it’s “stupid” stuff, like a 100-yearold chess piece or other easily pocketed item.
Things around the warehouse aren’t quite like they were a few years ago.
His father is ailing and no longer sells fruits and pecans outside the warehouse. His sons have careers in other states, although he hopes someday one will discover that the antiques business is in his blood, too, and return to take over.
Shipments continue to arrive several times a month. But aside from enlarging the parking lot, there will be no more additions to his antiques empire, Keathley says.
He and his wife, Leslie veterinarian Donna Cook, have a home filled with “all the antiques I can afford,” he says, including 28 built-in stained-glass windows. The antiques, he believes, are sort of his “savings account.”
Though he isn’t seriously thinking of retiring, he is 58 now. And his “money men — the accountants and lawyers” have told him it’s time to start winding down.
A world of furniture, after all, can’t be liquidated in a week.