SURPRISE IN THE SUNROOM: Karpen & Bros. antique furniture

In my last post, I  promised “the rest of the story,” so let’s pick up where we left off . . .  If you missed “the first of the story,” go ahead and read it now so you’ll be caught up. I’ll wait for you. 🙂

When I first saw this room, it looked like this.

I wasn’t impressed either.

Listing photo

Other than the low-ceiling, dirty carpet, un-air conditioned, currently-used-for-storage addition on the other side of that door, the sunroom was probably my least favorite room in the house when we moved in. It’s an addition on the back of the original farmhouse, and there are so many things I would have done differently. Perhaps someday I will. If I could have closed the door on it, I would have. But the door out to the driveway is in the sunroom, so . . .

 

It was a “nothing” room. A waste of space. A pass-through from the original farmhouse to the also-wasted-space addition further back.

Various odds and ends hung on the walls, challenging me to make sense of the mix. I couldn’t.

The room brought out my grumpy.

• Too many narrow, vertical windows (Why not fewer, larger windows?)
• Visually “busy” blinds (and so.much.dust)
• Depressing 8’ ceiling (with a little nod to height filled by a ceiling fan)
• Groutless, broken tiles (in the wrong style)
• Two monstrous hooks hung on the back of the door; visible in first pic (Why so large? And why two? Why not three?)

See? Grumpy. An attitude about as unimpressive as that room!

But one night a few months ago, everything changed.

Renaissance Man and I are known to spend an occasional Friday night at a favorite auction. It’s a get-out-of-the-house cheap date (unless, of course, we buy something). 🙂 Mrs. Bible sometimes brings us a jar of her homemade apple butter, and Mr. Bible often bids against my sweet husband on the antique tools. They also buy a meal for every veteran present at the Veterans Day weekend auction. Such generous, humble people.

This particular evening, we arrived about an hour early as we usually do to preview the items up for sale. There was an unusually large amount of furniture, and—since much of our own was still finding its way from storage into our “new” house—I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at it.

I did notice a hefty 3-piece set of cane-back upholstered furniture—a sofa and two armchairs—but I didn’t really have a place for them.

Or so I thought.

Actually, I had the perfect place for them, and the proverbial light bulb came on when they came up for auction and I saw them from afar.

Could they be what the sunroom needed to make me like it?

While I was mentally juggling “what ifs” and calculating my space, the auctioneer opened up the bidding.

Silence.

I was so shocked I don’t exactly know where the bidding finally started; I know I wasn’t the first.

But I was the last—at a ridiculously low $30. For the set.

So what’s wrong with it? One chair has a small section of broken caning down near the seat that is easily hidden by a pillow until it can be repaired. Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with the entire set. It’s well-made (and heavy!), stain-free, and has good proportions.

Back at home we placed the furniture in the sunroom, and I started decorating.

I started liking my sunroom.

Weeks later I prepared (finally) to oil the furniture, and I noticed a brass tag on the back of a chair . . . and then found the same tag on the other two pieces.

And the research began . . .

It turns out that S. Karpen & Bros. was well-known from the late 19th century until 1951. At one time it was the largest furniture manufacturer in the world.

According to the website created by the founder’s great-granddaughter, Emily C. Rose,

The Smithsonian Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, the Henry Ford Museum, and the Flagler Museum (St. Augustine, Florida) have Karpen furniture in their collections. Forbes Magazine featured the family in a 1926 article “How Nine Brothers Built Up a $10,000,000 Business,” and the Chicago Historical Society’s definitive book on the Chicago furniture industry from 1833 to 1983 highlighted the company.

Rose tells the story of the company and the emergence of a unique American furniture style, but she also tells the story of nine brothers—poor Jewish immigrants—who came to America from Prussia in 1872 and quickly became millionaires.

I hope you’ll click the link above and read the story. It’s truly amazing and filled with much more information than I could possibly share here!

But here’s what I learned about my Karpen set . . .

The sofa and armchairs are very close to the Modified Queen Anne pieces in this 1925 ad. And based on when the company expanded (and added another location to their tags), I believe my set was made  between 1919 and 1927.

Obviously the pieces were reupholstered at some point, but the box cushions across the back of my sofa protect the century-old cane, so I’m okay with that!

Not bad for $30.

Now it’s your turn . . .  Have you ever unknowingly made an auction or thrift store purchase (big or small!) that turned out to be a treasure? I’d love to know! Tell us your story in the comments.

Related posts:

MY WINDOWS TO THE WORLD: Restoring antique windows—a labor of love The French antique that (almost) got away … HIDDEN TREASURE: Antique log cabin How to gently remove old paint from antique hardware – It’s easy!