GOING ON A TREASURE HUNT AT THE ALAMEDA FLEA MARKET.
Vintage is business for this shopper at Alameda flea market
Jeni Maus, owner of Found Vintage Rentals, has a strict rule when shopping for vintage: Never embark on a treasure hunt for something in particular.
“Chances are, if you’re looking, you’ll never find it,” says Maus, who lives in Orange County but for years has frequented the Bay Area to scour the Alameda Pointe Antiques Faire. “Plus, if you have tunnel vision, you’ll miss out on other treasures.”
Recently, Maus has been combining her buying trips with visits to her 14,000-square-foot warehouse in Emeryville, which opened in July — a space filled with furniture and decorating accessories for rent. She has made her reputation putting together the rustic and the elegant, and in designing weddings, kitting out high-profile and celebrity nuptials.
During a recent visit to the Alameda outdoor flea market (held on the first Sunday of every month), Maus spent the day hunting for new pieces to add to Found’s rental inventory of more than 15,000 unique items. She zeroed in on an antique French leather chaise still sporting its original upholstery, a sizable old wooden birdcage and stacks of vintage Florentine trays. Some of her new finds may end up at her retail shop in Fullerton.
Maus arrived before dawn to the 43acre bazaar, a former naval air station, and spent nearly eight hours meandering through approximately 800 stalls, amassing more than a dozen pieces on her wheeled cart, including a pair of ‘70s-era gold side tables that she envisioned pairing with a velvet couch to create a vintage-glam lounge area at a wedding reception, and a two-sided wooden cubby to use for displaying place cards. She also unearthed a smattering of decorative accessories, such as
a leather suitcase, an old trombone and used books.
One of Maus’ favorite finds of the day was a rustic French work desk that she plans to sell in her retail shop. The piece, covered in burn marks and paint splotches, came from vendor Elsie Green, who owns a vintage home store in Concord. Green found the desk at a metal shop in Lyon, France. She speculates that it dates back to the early 1900s, when someone likely cobbled it together with scrap materials.
Once Maus adds caster wheels to the legs to raise it to standard desk height, she thinks it would work well in a home office or kids’ room. “I love the roughness of the wood. It shows that it’s been through many years of use,” Maus says.
Maus has been hunting at flea markets for nearly 15 years. She hatched the idea for her company after styling a studio for her husband, who was a wedding photographer at the time. An event planner asked whether she would consider renting out any of the vintage items in the studio. A few days later, in February 2010, Maus launched Found with just 88 pieces.
Maus soon began branching out from flea markets in California to those in New England and the South, eventually making her way to France and Hungary. Even so, the Alameda market remains at the top of her list, along with the Rose Bowl Flea Market in Pasadena closer to her home. While they’re not the largest fairs, they each offer a solid selection of antiques and vintage with decent prices.
Maus clearly felt at ease at the Alameda market, darting purposefully from vendor to vendor, one of whom sells Japanese indigo, another of Maus’ obsessions. She has the material throughout her home — as a blanket at the edge of her bed, covering pillows in her kids’ room, and used as rugs in her studio. The rich blue serves as a bold, rare hue in an otherwise neutral palette. She purchases indigo from vendors who source from China, France, Afghanistan and Africa, but she believes the Japanese material — specifically antique boro — is unmatched for its sturdy quality and unique aesthetic created from decades of patchwork and repairs.
The boro she bought at Alameda were from a small town outside of Tokyo where they had been stuffed with hay and used as beds. “Each one is a work of art. All of the patches and repairs show the age and the love put into the piece,” Maus says. “Sadly, in our culture, when something’s old, we tend to throw it away, but in Japan, it’s only respected more.”
While Maus has her go-to stalls, the surprise finds keep the shopping experience interesting. On this particular Sunday, one of those unforeseen buys was a massive red sign that reads: “Go Back You Are Going Wrong Way.”
Maus thought it would work in the entryway of a home where wit is part of the tableau. Indeed, Maus has her share of antique signs in her own space — a rugged, arrow-shaped Detour sign punctured with bullet holes hangs in the stairwell, while a more polished Poste porcelain sign from France acts as a statement piece in her kitchen.
“It’s important to keep an open mind and jump on things you may never see again,” she says. Which seems like a motto for both flea market and life.