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Merritt’s Showroom Tour
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Merritt’s showroom, built in 1967, is a 24,000 square foot, two-story complex with
nearly every square foot brimming with antiques. In fact, the size of the showroom
is the first of many amazements to the visitor, nearly the size of two football
fields. Built in the shape of a truncated “u” of cinder blocks with a metal roofed
portico running the entire length of the building, offices occupy the two bases, and
the antiques the two floors. Merritt’s showroom, as is the Clock Shop across the
parking lot, is a place where customers can browse, ask questions of the specialists,
and make purchases. While there are areas used for storage, most of the floor space
is open to both retail and wholesale purchase of antiques.
The main entrance from the parking lot leads through two, ten-foot high and twenty
feet long sliding doors, large enough to fit significant pieces of antique furniture,
into the portico. To the left stacks of steamer trunks and blanket chests greet the
customer, while the right has furniture almost farther than the eye can see. One
wonders what was in the steamer trunks, plying the ocean from Europe to America,
long before weight limits on aircraft came into play and while elegance and formality
were still an integral facet of trans-oceanic travel. The door to the showroom opens
to the sales desk where several of the antique specialists greet customers, looking
up inventory on the computer set on the counter or searching places to purchase other
antiques to add to the stock of Merritt’s Antiques. The eye is drawn beyond the desk
to the wall that is lined with antique china cabinets, sideboards, and wardrobes.
The wardrobes are fascinating, before closet space became a part of construction,
these wood cabinets with built in shelves for shirts and underwear and hooks to hang
suits and dresses were the place in the bedroom where clothing was kept. Some were
lined with cedar to protect against moths. The sheer number of wardrobes is amazing,
aisle after aisle of them greet each turn through this part of the showroom, some
just very simple, others carved and ornate, and a few with Pennsylvania Dutch
fraktur paintings and hex signs, most are one-of-a-kind antiques. Coming around the
corner from the rows of wardrobes an exquisite chest grabs the attention. Two
three-dimensional cherubs on the front hold a crest, colored carvings grace the side,
and small pillars seemingly hold the chest from the floor. Asking one of the
specialists about the piece, it turns out to be a late 17th century, Italian chest
perhaps used for a dowry, or what we might now call a “hope chest” for a woman to
place items prior to marriage. What was in it? Was it clothing, silk material to
make dresses, linens for a table or bed? The innate beauty of the chest definitely
means it was for someone upper class, perhaps even nobility. In a time of mainly
“arranged” marriages where wealth and status so often determined and limited the
choices, an elegant chest, such as this must have been 400 years ago, had to convey
to potential suitors a clear message of station in the Italian society of the time.
Moving down three steps to a lower part of the ground floor of Merritt’s Showroom,
there are more Court Cupboards and many small pieces in this section. There are
marble topped occasional tables, along with end tables of carved and inlaid wood.
The Court Cupboards were the British designation for what was called in Europe a
Sideboard. They originally were used for a “new” way of serving light meals in the
18th century, the buffet, which name survives today as a designation for a piece of
furniture to hold linens and silverware when purchased with a dining room suite. The
glass covered shelving on the top part of the Court Cupboard was used to display
china and silver, mainly as a way of showing the wealth and status of the owner,
in England mostly the nobles serving meals “buffet style” in their ‘court’. The
piece of furniture is still part of most dining room sets, now called by the majority
a “china cabinet”. The drawers were for linens, often very decorative, used not only
on the counter where the food was placed, but also draped from the corners of the top
down the sides creating a frame of material for the food. The counter was just about
waist high, making it convenient for the guests to fill their plates and take to the
tables. One intriguing Court Cupboard on display is about nine feet high with spiral
wooden pillars on each side of the chest “held” by carved lions resting on the counter.
The drawers don’t have just simple handles on this piece: the handles are wood-carved
cat faces, somewhat stylized, perhaps to resemble a lynx or bobcat face. A Victorian
sofa and chairs sit nearby, with embroidered pole screens for the fireplace beside
the chairs. Musings carry the visitor to an English Tea-time, sandwiches, cheese, and
tea on the counter, a woman sitting in the sofa the screen shielding the lead based
makeup on her delicate face and her expansive, lard set wig from the full heat of the
fire warming the room, while the hostess of the ‘court’ made sure that the kitchen
servants kept the serving dishes full. This is what Merritt’s Antiques Showroom does:
transports the visitor to other times and other places, recapturing in the present
imagination both the mundane and glamorous of the past.
Moving further along in the first floor furniture section the right side wall is
covered with dowels holding needlepoint covers, hand-sewn comforters, and embroidered
blankets. Several of them have woven into the design the name of the seamstress and
the date in the 19th century when it was made. Opposite those is a section of
tilt-top tables designed to be placed next to the wall in small homes when not in
use and taken out and set up for mealtime. Next to one of those tilt-top tables is
an intriguing one-of-a-kind model in a tetrahedron plastic case: a hand carved and
painted wooden two story house. The display is not just a house; it is a setting
complete with bushes and trees, and even the family dog laying on the stoop! Several
aisles of drop leaf antique desks are behind the model house. There is a wide-ranging
variety of sizes and wood types, some with felt topping on the drop leaf and shelf.
At the end of the last aisle of desks is a fascinating, antique pump organ with a
dozen reed stops. It is probably too small to have been in a church. Perhaps it
provided the background music for silent movies in a theatre or a well-to-do family
gathered around it to sing after dinner. The reeds resonate with a sound, which, in
spite of all the technology and computer models, cannot be reproduced with a modern,
electric organ. As if watching over the organ, a hand carved, wooden eagle with a
three-foot wingspan, reminiscent of the style of Frederic Remington, braces on a
branch beside it.
Leaving the first floor furniture area, down another three steps, brings the visitor
to what might be called the antique work section: it is the area in Merritt’s
showroom where tools and kitchenware are displayed. While some may take issue with
cooking as work, an investigation of the milk pan and butter churners might dispel
that objection. After hand milking the cows, the milk was placed in a pitcher which
fit into the milk pan, which was filled with either cool water from the well or, for
the fortunate to live near a town, ice and water mixture. As the milk cooled, the
cream settled to the top, which was then skimmed off with a cream skimmer, placed
into the cylindrical butter churner, and worked with wooden paddles until the fat
broke down and became butter. Several butter churners sit on the floor next to the
table holding the milk bowls. Bread boards to remove, cool, and cut bread are next
to bun boards, used to raise long, “French bread” shaped loaves before baking. Long
handled waffle irons used over an open fire or in “ovens” built into the fireplace
lean against the tables holding cast iron griddles and frying pans. Cookie boards,
over a hundred years old, were used to shape the dough to make cookies, often made
from wheat which was ground right there in the kitchen in small flour mills of which
there are several examples in Merritt’s Showroom. Rows of tables hold all varieties
of stoneware storage containers, every size pot imaginable, serving trays, and even
candy molds into which to pour the liquid to make treats for the children. Perhaps
some still believe spending the day baking bread, churning butter, filling a “Turkish
hat” (bundt pan) to bake a cake, all the while stirring the pot of stew hanging over
the fire was not work. Maybe we can just call it “different work” from: plowing the
field with a wooden plow behind the horses; planing a tree branch with a wooden plane
to replace a broken fence post; and tossing the hay into piles with a pitchfork carved
from a tree trunk. Whatever we call either, the antique tools and cooking implements
in Merritt’s Showroom give a captivating insight into life in our past. One other
item, avowedly better from the past, is a collection of Christmas tree stands made of
solid cast iron, about a hundred years old. A far cry from the fragile, seemingly
“tissue thin” ones we buy today.
Continuing the walk along the first floor, along a fifty-foot counter laden with
silver, we come into the pottery display. The variety spans all aspects of pottery:
Redware, stoneware, earthenware, porcelain, and china. Some are antique, others are
collectible (such as Russell Henry signed Redware and Lladro porcelain), and others
more modern. Many countries are represented in the porcelain and crystal: Germany;
England; China; Japan; France; and, of course, America. The names are familiar:
Baccarat; Tiffany; Wedgwood; Limoges; Royal Copenhagen; Lenox and Noritake. Individual
pieces certified as antiques are found in locked cases along the left wall of the
pottery display. Here brass candlesticks flank porcelain figurines and Blue Willow
china. Another case holds a small but impressive display of blue jasperware from
Wedgwood. Sterling Silver serving pieces are laid tastefully around painted and glazed
redware mugs and figurines. In between the silver and the porcelain figurines, a case
holds both English and American antique pewter pieces, all stamped with the designer of
the molds used to create them in the past centuries. Opposite the cases, serving
dishes, soup tureens, gravy boats, tea and coffee service sets, and cake trays round
out the section of pottery.
At the end of the first floor of the showroom, a section has been created to display
selected pieces from the Gifts and Furniture Shop, recently opened by Merritt’s
Antiques. <<< Insert link to Gifts_Furniture_Shop_Tour.asp<<< These items are of a
decorative nature, what sometimes are called “nick-knacks” along with thematic
selections, such as nautical or country. In addition to the smaller, decorative and
thematic pieces, displays from the Gifts and Furniture Shop of crafted replicas of
antique pieces occupy a wing of the showroom at the very end of the first floor,
including carved fireplace surrounds.
Several displays of sailor’s knots are available, reminding some of the agonizing
days spent learning how to tie a sheepshank knot in Scouts. A selection of Tiffany
Style table lamps illuminates a country kitchen setting, an eight foot, American
made colonia pine table is set with eight pine chairs and place mats, complete with
bartender figures in near life size. Living room settings, curio cases, mirrors and
art prints round out the selection.
Three separate staircases lead from the first to the second floor of Merritt’s
Showroom. Going up the flight directly by the entrance and the sales desk, the first
section of the second floor is filled with almost any wooden chair one could imagine.
Most of these are single pieces, others in pairs. There are straight back chairs with
wooden seats, and some cane seats done in the older style with individual holes for
that cane rather than the later grove. There are chairs with rush seats, woven seats,
rocking chairs, barrel back “u” shaped chairs, child-size regular and high- chairs,
and several carpet chairs from about 1870. Further on a collection of antique bed
frames is displayed, even one with springs as part of the frame rather than the
wooden posts and slats to hold a “box spring” to be placed in the frame. Many
hand-turned rope beds are on display from the time before slats became the normal
way to hold a mattress, along with the very popular “Jenny Lind” beds from the 19th
century, almost all in the ¾ size fashionable at the time. The carving on some of
the headboards is much more detailed than in modern bed frames, as is the choice of
wood ranging from the palest oak to the deepest walnut. Hanging on the walls of this
section are a variety of oil paintings, watercolor paintings, and prints. Almost
hidden among them is a Pennsylvania Dutch birth and baptismal certificate, framed
under glass, with fraktur images around it. The printed text is in German, and the
birth information for a daughter named Elizabeth born and baptized in 1852 is hand
written in German script, most likely by the Pastor performing the baptism. It is a
marvelous, one-of-a-kind piece of history and cultural continuity.
Going down the three steps to the next level of the second floor of Merritt’s Showroom,
while not exactly the Gallerie de Glaces of Versailles, is an entire seventy-foot wall
of mirrors. There are round mirrors, square ones, large and small, with frames ranging
from Baroque gilded to plain wood. A few mirrors are on the opposite wall, mostly hung
with more oil paintings, watercolors, and prints, which at the right angle reflect the
mirrors and give an image of infinite depth. Most of the floor in this section is
covered with a large variety of tables: end tables, coffee tables, refractory tables
from Germany, drop-leaf tables, and dining tables. Toward the end of this section of
Merritt’s Showroom is a collection of antique cradles. Close inspection of the rockers
shows wear of the wood from the rubbing and pressure of “mom’s” shoe keeping her baby
moving and serene. Right next to the cradles is a collection of spinning wheels and flax
holders. It is as if one could imagine one foot on the rocker of the cradle and another
on the trundle of the spinning wheel creating woolen thread from the scane or batt on
the winder from which the infant’s cap and sweater would later be knit.
Walking down the final three steps into the last section of the second floor of
Merritt’s Showroom, there is a floor filled with antique chair sets. The sets are
comprised of from two to eight matching chairs, most likely used in a dining room
setting. There are Windsor chairs in many different varieties, and several sets of
repaints from the 18th century, along with some sets with the original paintwork.
While most are wood, there are some with material seats and backs and some with rush
seats. A small area has several Victorian sofas and love seats next to “Boston
Rockers”. There is an interesting display of bed steps for bedpans used in homes
where a walk outside would have been required during the night. These rectangular
boxes with a lid are like the base of a toilet without the water reservoir at the
back. Again, Merritt’s Showroom gives us a glimpse into a facet of life in past
centuries. A shelf beneath the display of antique paintings holds footstools and
what some call “primping mirrors”, a mirror in a frame hinged to two posts which
tilts so that one may “primp” before going out.
We certainly hope you will have the opportunity to visit Merritt’s Showroom and see
for yourself not only the items mentioned here, but also the thousands of other
antiques on display. More of the antiques available are presented on the
Antiques section of Merritt’s Antiques.com. If you are out of the area, there
are many historic places to visit near Merritt’s Antiques (the Daniel Boone Homestead,
where the pioneer grew up to sixteen years old; and Hopewell Furnace, where ironware
was made from colonial times through the 19th century, to name a couple), and
excellent Bed and Breakfasts for an overnight stay while visiting those places and
our showroom. We hope to see you soon!!!
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