MID-CENTURY FINDS
GEORGE CHAMPION MODERN SHOP IS IN THE ANTIQUES MECCA OF CONNECTICUT
Midcentury modern furniture and decor has been having a major resurgence over the past few years. Trendy chain stores like West Elm, CB2 and IKEA are chock full of replicas and pieces inspired by the era.
But in the small town of Woodbury, the antiques Mecca of Connecticut, buyers can get the real deal.
“I don't like copies and lookalikes. That does not have place here,” said George Champion, owner of George Champion Modern Shop in Woodbury. “I like to trace a design back to its roots and go with the original. Who did it first? Who made it first? Who has the rights to it.”
Champion said he thinks the popularity of midcentury modern style may have attributed to an uptick in business for him, but the pandemic is what has really caused a boom over the past year.
“This past weekend we had four groups of people on Saturday that had just bought a house in Litchfield County,” Champion said in a March interview. “It's mostly people from New York. It was the same story with four different groups of people.”
COVID has also posed some challenges for Champion who prefers to do his hunting in person rather than online, but during the pandemic, many auctions have gone virtual and flea markets have had to close up. “I have to work a little harder and take a few more COVID chances, which I’m not happy about, but that’s what it takes. You have to be innovative to fill a shop with good things these days,” Champion said.
Luckily, he said his shop is designed in a way that allows customers to safely wander around, masked, on their own.
George Champion Modern Shop is made up of two buildings on the main drag of the rural Litchfield County town: a small schoolhouse-looking building and a large antique farmhouse. A resident of town, he had his eye on the smaller structure for a while and when it came on the market about 18 years ago, Champion jumped at the chance to showcase and sell his pieces there. A few years later, he expanded to the house next door. But Champion’s passion for design started when he was a kid visiting manufacturing factories with his father.
In his teen years and early 20s, he became “obsessed” with Shaker furniture and started studying it fervently. “I so fascinated that I went to every Shaker community in the northeast to learn,” he said. “Then I started collecting it and started to see it as modern and that led me to studying modern furniture.”
After going through the eras studying furniture and design, Champion landed on midcentury and Bauhaus as his favorites. “It was the most creative and innovative (era) that came along,” he said. “Post-war design with an influx of new materials...became the hottest period of design.”
For him, the shop was really a place for the overflow of pieces he had begun to collect. And he admits it’s hard to see some of his favorite pieces sell sometimes.
“I just love it so much, I want to be surrounded by it. It led me to a business so that I could have more than just living in a house with it. Now I have two buildings and surround myself with the things I love, which makes for a pleasurable life,” he said.
Some of his favorite pieces in the shop right now include a contemporary Campana Brothers sofa that was represented at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and an Osvaldo Borsani daybed from 1956. “It’s a rare piece; you don’t see them that often.”
Champion lives in a classic Victorian farmhouse — not unlike the one that houses half of his shop; “it’s like a mini version” — full of midcentury and contemporary pieces.
“I like mixing different styles; that’s the most interesting way to do a house is to mix it up and let personality show through. I don't push style on anyone,” he said. “The small building shows a one-room open plan and the Victorian house shows [customers] a traditional house furnished in modern furniture. Here’s a house with parquet floors and nine-foot ceilings and moldings, and it can look good with modern furniture. It gives them confidence.”
Authentic midcentury modern and contemporary furniture does come with a hefty price tag, though. Pieces in Champion’s shop can reach upwards of $25,000. But there are also affordable treasures sprinkled in like vintage salad servers and a collection of funky ashtrays from hotels around the world that go for about $25 a piece. “Cheap Trip,” says the sign. “People love these things,” Champion said.
“No one can pigeon-hole this shop. I don’t want people to be intimidated that they can’t afford things, and I don’t want people to think it’s too cheap, so it’s not good stuff,” said Champion.
Most of his repeat customers are design-focused homeowners, though he does get some interior designers now and then.
“Most people want to have something special and unique as opposed to something massproduced, and not have a cookiecutter house I would think. There is some level of design in the person who seeks out one of these pieces,” said Champion. “People want something cool.”
“I LIKE MIXING DIFFERENT STYLES; THAT’S THE MOST INTERESTING WAY TO DO A HOUSE IS TO MIX IT UP AND LET PERSONALITY SHOW THROUGH.”