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A 62-inch-tall marble statue, 'Maiden With Raised Cymbals,' stands in the foyer of the home owned by Ed Shiflett and Reese Beard. It will be among the items up for auction March 18.
Flintridge (left) and Aynsley china dishes are among the sets of dinnerware that will be auctioned.
The walls of 528 Caroline St. are covered with ornately framed oil paintings. The owners, who ran the Century Shop attached to the home, kept their favorite pieces for themselves to enjoy.
The Victorian home at 528 Caroline St. and the adjoining shop will be up for auction March 17, a day before their contents are put up for bids.
The Century Shop has a Wolfe Street address but actually adjoins the Caroline Street house. The property |
IF YOU’VE EVER wondered what the operators of an antiques shop decide to keep for themselves, here’s your chance.
Anyone familiar with downtown Fredericksburg has probably noticed the combination Victorian home and antiques shop at the corner of Caroline and Wolfe streets.
Of course it’s a choice piece of real estate that enjoys Commercial Downtown zoning. Of course there was always an interesting assortment of items for sale in the Century Shop, as the adjoining store is known.
But what’s inside the house? The two gentlemen owners of the property, the late Stanley Reese Beard and Edward Shiflett, had owned Grandma’s Attic Antiques in Manassas since 1958. The lifelong partners came to Fredericksburg and bought 528 Caroline St. in 1984.
Ed Shiflett died in 2001; Reese Beard died two months ago on Christmas Day. In the absence of offspring, their relatives have decided to auction the property and its contents.
Nicholls Auction Co. will handle the sales, with the real estate being auctioned at the site at 10 a.m. March 17 and the contents a day later at 9:30 a.m. A caretaker is living at the house.
When he first saw the collection inside the house, auctioneer John Nicholls said, he wasn’t sure what to think.
“My head was spinning with logistics,” he said. “How am I going to present this?”
Nicholls has arranged with Augustine’s restaurant at Fredericksburg Square, across the street at 528 Caroline St., to host the sale. There, a large screen will be set up for a closed-circuit broadcast of each lot that’s up for bids.
Visit nichollsauction.com for the details, including preview dates and times. Prospective bidders will be able to purchase catalogs that provide lot-by-lot descriptions and many pictures of the items.
Nicholls said the company enlisted the services of Christine Corbin, a veteran appraiser with a Richmond auction company, to number and organize the collection. She ended up with 674 lots, which range from a set of china to an individual piece of artwork.
“The house was really stuffed with cool French and Oriental art. They were collectors, and apparently kept the best for themselves,” said Corbin. “There are lots of great garden ornaments, miniature portraits, oil paintings, silver, figurines, statuary and more than anyone can name.”
According to information that the auction company gathered from the men’s families, the collection represents the best of what the men gathered in 48 years of antiques collecting. Many items went into the shop; many others were retained in their home. Much of their buying was done at Adam A. Weschler & Son, the Washington auction house that opened for business in 1890.
It’s an eclectic collection, representing everything from Oriental to Louis XV and XVI, French Provincial and early American. There is artwork, including oil paintings in ornate gilded frames from the 19th and early 20th centuries, sculptures, screens and figurines. There are many sets of china, ceramic items and porcelain bowls, urns and vases, and sterling silver tea sets and place settings.
Oriental-style rugs cover the floors. The many pieces of furniture are all collector’s items and represent many eras and styles. Clocks range from a small, ornate table clock to a tall grandfather’s clock that dates to 1800, give or take a decade.
Auctioneer Charles Nicholls, the company’s president, estimates that because the items are so well organized now, the March 18 auction will take “only” about six hours.
First, though, will be the auction of the house and shop a day earlier. The house is a classic Victorian that was built in 1891 by Robert W. Adams, who was the Fredericksburg city treasurer at the time, according to a history prepared by Historic Fredericksburg Foundation. It has a front portico and stacked bay windows on the first and second stories, and is covered in beaded clapboard siding.
The house is said to be structurally sound, and an inspection of the dry basement with its concrete floor, brick columns and huge, unbowed support beams suggests just that.
The heart pine floors appear to be in excellent condition throughout, as are the plaster walls. True to the period, the front parlor and dining room to the rear are separated by pocket doors. Farther back is a library or study that leads to the kitchen.
The house is listed as having two bedrooms, one full bathroom and three half-baths.
There are five fireplaces. All but one mantel have been replaced with more detailed ones collected by the owners. The original ones are stored safely in the basement.
Though the house appears to be in good shape overall, the electrical, plumbing and heating systems are old and may require upgrading. Aside from a couple of window units, there is no air conditioning. The kitchen and bathrooms could use refreshing.
A new owner could choose to configure the shop area as additional sleeping quarters, a family or media room, or maintain it as a shop of some sort.
To the side of the house is a narrow, courtyard-type area that provides a touch of outdoor privacy. Foundation shrubs encircle the rest of the property.
According to the HFFI research, there had been a house, grocery store and lumber yard at the site starting sometime in the 18th century.
A tax record for 1865 shows the lot as vacant, suggesting the structure succumbed during the Civil War. Adams acquired the lot in early 1891 and immediately sought construction of a house on it. Days after the house was completed that fall, however, Adams died at 67.
The Free Lance, a predecessor to The Free Lance–Star, noted after his death “the neatness and exactness with which he kept the accounts of the [treasurer’s] office, without any mistake or discrepancy of any kind.”
In December, however, the newspaper reported Adams’ city books were short $4,361.55, an issue that would dog the city and Adams’ business partners for years to come.
Shiflett and Beard bought the property from the Govanides family, which had owned it since 1940. The two men created the Century Shop from what had been a Wolfe Street taxi stand.
To reach RICHARD AMRHINE:
540/374-5406
ramrhine@freelancestar.com
