BLESS THIS MESS
Inside ‘Antiques Roadshow’ host Nicholas Lowry’s ‘postapocalyptic garage sale’ spread
NICHOLAS Lowry, the 53-year-old president of Swann Auction Galleries and a longtime host of PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow,” describes his Manhattan apartment as a “wunderkammer,” or a cabinet of curiosities.
He’s stuffed the one-bedroom rental with items that keep him happy — such as some 50 busts of figures from Beethoven to Elvis (inset) and roughly 60 plants that front a 15-foot window.
“A lot of people [say], ‘Oh my God, this is going to take me hours to go through, there’s so much to see,’ ” the Manhattan native told The Post. “And I’m happy to let people do that when they come over.”
Lowry has lived in this stately apartment near Union Square — whose great room features wood paneling and gargoyles under a 27-foot beamed cathedral ceiling — for seven years.
“It really is the outer manifestation of my inner mind,” he said. “I’m a little ADD, I’m a little bit of a hoarder and I like things around me. The way I dress is very colorful and eclectic, and I guess that’s the way I live.”
In October, Lowry opened his door to Homeworthy, a media company that profiles big personalities and their grand homes.
During the shoot, Lowry showed off a gumball machine filled with matchbooks, a vintage newspaper/magazine rack now used as a bar, even a reproduction of a suit of armor whose helmet is topped with a crown of pink flowers. Lowry also keeps a stock of vintage posters — particularly a collection of hangings from his father’s native Czechoslovakia — many of which he can’t hang. They number in the hundreds, but it isn’t wall space that prevents him from displaying them. The great room’s walls come adorned with a well-preserved golden brocade fabric, which he neither wants to cover nor destroy — so he hung some of them in a hallway leading to his bedroom. One is a 1930s advertisement for Czech motorcycle manufacturer JAWA. Another is an illustration of Consul, the performing chimpanzee, dressed in a patterned suit and riding a bicycle.
“It speaks to me on so many levels,” Lowry said. “Basically that monkey’s dressed the way I dress ... Having been in the [antiques] business as long as I’ve been, which is some 30-odd years almost, there are some things I’ve never seen before — and that really cracks me up,” he said.
“The guy wears threepiece suits and a handlebar mustache — and described his home as a ‘bohemian hangout or post-apocalyptic garage sale … smorgasbord of everything,’” said Alison Kenworthy, 38, an Emmy-winning television producer, who’s the founder and executive producer of Homeworthy. “He is an eccentric and interesting charismatic individual, and his apartment is a perfect reflection of that.”
Lowry admits that he suffers from “clutter-itis,” but does that mean he’s done collecting? No, he said — he’ll keep collecting (he’s currently hunting for an Egyptian sarcophagus).
“I hear from countless people, ‘You don’t have room for anything else!’ ” he said. “There’s always room for something else.”