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Harvey Schwartz - The Last Great Rattan Dealer
631 Plays1 year ago
Known as the last great rattan dealer, Harvey Schwartz is getting ready to relaunch his infamous rattan company, Tropical Sun. So why is Harvey the last great rattan dealer? Well, at 80 years old he’s still running the show and grabbing up all the great rattan known, even if it means going to a swap meet at 5am. To say he loves this stuff is an understatement. His collection spans over 2500pcs, and the best part? It’s all for sale. Harvey actually started as an aerospace engineer which has surprisingly helped him in his rattan business more than you would think. He’s not only dealing in vintage, but he’s bringing the old stuff back and bending the rattan himself. Be sure to check out his store in Los Angeles next time you’re around, or his website. But for now, please enjoy, Harvey Schwartz, for Collectors Gene Radio.
Tropical Sun Rattan - https://tropicalsunrattan.com/
Rattan Furniture Book - https://www.amazon.com/Rattan-Furniture-Schiffer-Military-History/dp/0764307703
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Transcript
Streisand's Rattan Connection
00:00:00
Speaker
In about 1970, I had my own little store on Beverly Boulevard, right across the street from CBS. And Barbra Streisand drove up, and I had two little old rattan chairs in front, and she bought them both. And I went, this must be the game to play.
Introduction to Collector's Gene Radio
00:00:17
Speaker
What's going on, everybody? And welcome to Collector's Gene Radio. This is all about diving into the nuances of collecting and ultimately finding out whether or not our guests have what we like to call the collector's gene.
00:00:30
Speaker
If you have the time, please subscribe and leave a review. It truly helps. Thanks a bunch for listening, and please enjoy today's guest on Collector's Dream Radio.
The Relaunch of Tropical Sun
00:00:42
Speaker
Known as the last great rattan dealer, Harvey Schwartz is getting ready to relaunch his infamous rattan company, Tropical Sun. But why is Harvey the last great rattan dealer? Well, at 80 years old, he's still running the show and grabbing up all the great rattan known, even if it means going to a swap meet at five in the morning.
00:01:01
Speaker
To say he loves this stuff is an understatement. His collection spans over 2,500 pieces, and the best part? It's all for sale.
From Aerospace to Antiques
00:01:09
Speaker
Harvey actually started as an aerospace engineer, which has surprisingly helped him in his rattan business more than you would think. See, now he's not only dealing in vintage, but he's bringing back the old stuff and bending the rattan himself. So next time you're in Los Angeles, be sure to check out his store or his website. But for now, please enjoy Harvey Schwartz for Collectors Gene Radio.
00:01:31
Speaker
Harvey Schwartz, welcome to Collector's Dream Radio. Why, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. So on the internet, you're known as one of the last great rattan dealers, but that's not where things really got started for you. So can you take us back just a bit before all this kind of started? Okay. Well, we go all the way back to 1969 when I was an aerospace engineer.
00:01:56
Speaker
And in 69 the 10 year space programs were over and there was 25,000 guys in LA just like me out of work looking for jobs. So I decided to go into the antique business with my wife at the time and she was a great collector. I knew nothing. So we opened up a little store and we were off and running and I seem to
00:02:22
Speaker
doubled every couple of years in size because I learned quick because I love Art Deco at the time.
00:02:29
Speaker
And there was plenty of it to be had in Los Angeles. So I've been doing this from 69. And about 1970, I had my own little store on Beverly Boulevard right across the street from CBS.
Celebrity Clientele
00:02:42
Speaker
And Barbra Streisand drove up and I had two little old rattan chairs in front. And she bought them both. And I went, this must be the game to play. So I've been continuing. I've been buying and selling rattan ever since.
00:02:58
Speaker
Was she a long-term customer after that? Yes. She bought Deco from me and all kinds of things. And also her son, when her son was old enough to have the nanny drive down Melrose to all the antique stores, he used to come in and he was a customer. And at one point you had three different businesses under one roof. How did those mix together?
00:03:23
Speaker
Ah, well, I started out as Harvey's. Harvey's on Melrose, of course. And then I started doing rattan really heavy in the late seventies and early eighties. So I put sign out tropical sun rattan company. So if you see a picture of my store in the old days, half of the store said Harvey's on Melrose. And the other stores said tropical sun rattan.
Rise of 20th Century Props
00:03:49
Speaker
And then
00:03:51
Speaker
I did so much business with the movie business that I also opened up a prop house and they called it 20th century props. And that was kind of an instant success. I was very happy with that. And that grew to be the biggest prop house under one roof in the world. I had over 200,000 square feet and I looked like, you know, with all the racking inside, it looked like a big giant Costco, but only antique furniture.
00:04:20
Speaker
and lighting. So it's been a fun ride. And I'm doing a little bit of 20th century props, renting still, and I do a little bit of Harvey's on Beverly, with all the kinds of mid century modern lighting and furniture, which I still have a lot of. And now I'm launching this month, as a matter of fact, tropical sun return company again. Wow. How exciting is that?
00:04:47
Speaker
It's very exciting. I'm going to go for it all the way, and I've got thousands of pieces of vintage rattan, including 21 pieces of original Paul Frankel, which no one has, and no one has it for sale except me. That's why you're the last great rattan dealer. Yeah.
00:05:10
Speaker
So you've been collecting, restoring, and selling rattan pieces for over 45 years now. Yes. How do you sift through the pieces in which you collect, restore, and then sell? Well, I only buy the well-known high-style rattan pieces, like a six-stranded square pretzel or a three-stranded three-quarter pretzel and those kinds of things.
00:05:40
Speaker
On my website, you can see I have one page of all the top designs of the day. And those are the kinds I buy. I try not to buy the everyday kind of rattan or the inexpensive rattan. I'm just dealing with the really pretty stuff, the designer stuff. And they all call it Paul Frankl, but almost none of it is. There isn't any Paul Frankl for sale anywhere that I know of.
00:06:08
Speaker
It's kind of one of those like Paul Frankel style sort of things, but they just always leave out the word style. So you think it's actual Paul Frankel. Yeah.
The Return to Rattan
00:06:16
Speaker
Well, I start, stop selling rattan furniture in 1995 and I didn't start up again until 2015. So there was 20 years that a rattan went away and there wasn't anybody selling it or anybody buying it. Um, it just, it was gone.
00:06:36
Speaker
What were you doing in between those years? Well, 20th century props was so large that it kept my time. And I had 28 employees and 200,000 square feet. So I stopped selling things and I would only rent. In 2008, when the crash happened for everyone, it happened for me too. And it was not only, it was the perfect storm.
00:07:04
Speaker
with everything going on, including Hollywood moving away from Hollywood because of the writer's strike and all those kind of strikes like it is today. It's going to be tough in LA for quite a while. Are you bending rattan and making pieces yourself as well? Yeah, I'm starting to reproduce them because I can't find enough of the old stuff. So I'm making reproductions of the
00:07:31
Speaker
like the Golden Girls Rutan furniture, which I made in the first place also in 1980s. And I call it the fan arm. Nowadays we call it Hawaii style. But I made that in 1984 for the Golden Girls. And that was kind of the greatest period of Rutan furniture ever. And then it all kind of went away to about, you know, 95.
00:07:59
Speaker
I feel as if we're seeing a boom in Rattan right now, and it's kind of a great time for you to get back into it, wouldn't you agree? Well, I created the need.
00:08:11
Speaker
When I went back into business, selling rattan furniture in 2015, there wasn't anybody on the internet selling rattan furniture. And if you googled rattan furniture, what you would come up with was woven plastic outdoor furniture, only. So I had to kind of teach the whole world what rattan was again. So I started renting it. So I did a couple of movies with rattan furniture in it. And I did a lot of,
00:08:42
Speaker
The decorators are always looking for something that's different. So I was different. Here I was with tons of Rutan furniture in 2015. So all the decorators wanted to put it in their TV shows and movies.
00:09:01
Speaker
magazines to advertise their clothing and such, Louis Vuitton and everyone. So it was in front of everybody's eyes everywhere. So that's what made Rattan furniture popular again. And within a couple of years, everybody was making Rattan furniture and selling Rattan furniture. What are the biggest challenges in Rattan dealing and collecting today? Knowing what you're buying,
00:09:30
Speaker
There was a lot of reproductions made in the 80s and 90s. And if you're paying top dollar to have the old stuff, the 1930s or 40s, you have to kind of read my book to get the hint of how to tell the difference between the old and the new.
00:09:50
Speaker
Kind of funny because in a lot of industries of which you could collect, you know art wine cars watches, whatever it may be You know the saying is is always buy the dealer But you're making it pretty easy for everybody because you are the the sole dealer of of all this stuff right and and one of my keys that makes me successful is you'll find the word restored in every one of my
00:10:17
Speaker
ads
Restoration and Perfection
00:10:18
Speaker
or wherever I'm selling it, every object says restored. No one else really restores their rattan. I was looking around today on the internet at some of the other people that were selling rattan furniture. The cushions look great, but if you look close at the arms, they're kind of dirty or scratched or all kinds of undesirable rattan furniture. Mine are all restored and all perfect.
00:10:47
Speaker
As someone who sells and restores the same items that you also collect, how do you deal with the internal battle of what to keep for your personal collection and then what to sell? Oh, I keep nothing. I have some stuff.
00:11:05
Speaker
I had collections in my house of, I used to collect everything. I used to collect crystal balls. I used to collect dice, rabbits, because Harvey the Rabbit, people, you know, what, what are you going to buy an antique dealer who's got everything? I was collecting rabbits. So I had all those collections of dice and crystal balls and rabbits and Art Deco and Art Nouveau and
00:11:28
Speaker
But I'm 80 years old now, so I'm building the retained business, but I'm selling everything I've ever owned. All the bronze and ivories and all the fabulous pieces I've collected over the years. My house is kind of, kind of bare now and I don't have any showcases or I'm selling all my antique radios and you name it. I'm, I'm selling it all. So it's easy for me not to keep anything now.
00:11:55
Speaker
But as a collector, I guess, of many things, whether it's furniture or crystal balls or dice, if it goes to a great place and you know where it's going, do you still get joy out of knowing that someone else is now the custodian of that thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I love that part. I've got probably the five of the best
00:12:20
Speaker
radios from the 30s and 40s ever made and they're all for sale. I've sold two of them so far and I'm thrilled that they're going to radio collectors who really understand them and appreciate them. At one point your collection totaled over 2,000 pieces and
00:12:43
Speaker
Obviously you're selling a lot of stuff today, but where do you think that number stands today in terms of how many pieces of retained furniture are you going to be relaunching with? I've got probably 2,500 pieces of retained now. And I'm ordering some of the new stuff, which will come in soon. But I've got 2,500 pieces now. Probably have more right now than ever. Did you grow up in a family that collected items?
00:13:09
Speaker
No. My wife at the time got me hooked on buying and selling antiques and old stuff. And since I was an aerospace engineer, I kind of understood straight lines, circles, and squares. So everything I did was straight line circles and squares. So that's why I went into Art Deco originally. I just load straight line circles and squares.
00:13:36
Speaker
I would love if you could tell everybody about the book you wrote on Rattan and why it's important for them to grab a copy of it and understand it so that they can, I guess, better learn about the importance of Rattan furniture. Well, in my book, I show a lot of pictures of the really good Rattan and the pictures are really high resolution. So it's really great. I was really lucky. I did a, uh,
00:14:05
Speaker
a show with Santa Monica Heritage Museum, and I did a whole giant room of rattan furniture for them. I think it was during their radio show. I don't remember exactly, but the Schiffer Book Company, the guy who owned it, came by, and he was enthused with my rattan furniture, so we decided to do a book together.
00:14:33
Speaker
That room, by the way, that I had at the museum, I sold the whole room to John Candy at the time. I think that was 1995 or six. I'm not sure. So the owner of Schiffer Book Company was the one who talked me into doing a rattan book and sent a photographer to my warehouse. And we started up with taking pictures of everything I owned at the time.
00:15:02
Speaker
and putting it in the book. And then we started writing dialogue, and it's more of a labor of love than anything. Why people should look at it, besides having really great pictures, you can see the differences of Good Rutan compared to what you might run across at a garage sale or something. Good Rutan is really different than the newer Rutan.
00:15:29
Speaker
The old Rutan used to sell the Rutan poles themselves. The manufacturers would classify them as A, B, or C. The C's wouldn't be as pretty as the A's, of course. So everybody made all the Rutan with the A poles, but they ran out of it because of the
00:15:53
Speaker
pollution and things like that, you know, it makes retained dirty. And so in the 70s and 80s, when pollution was really worse than it is now, really, the polls were kind of terrible. So they started painting things and staining things, white, or all kinds of different kinds of funny colors. And my book kind of explains all of that. That's great. So it's a
00:16:21
Speaker
It's a full guide to retain furniture and what to look for, what not to buy, and what the good stuff really looks like. Yes. I'm curious to know how is the, I guess, furniture rental for props and all that stuff, how has that industry changed since you got started? Oh, well, it used to be pretty easy to rent anything.
00:16:46
Speaker
Nowadays, one of the problems is that everybody's moved out of town. Georgia, Canada, everywhere. So it makes it a little more difficult. And I used to be able to rent art, you know, all the old, like in the
00:17:02
Speaker
when you have a tan room, you want to have flamingo pictures on the walls. You can't do that anymore. Because of clearances and everybody suing everybody, it makes it really difficult to rent anything that has a name on it. You can't rent Herman Miller furniture unless you pay Herman Miller to
00:17:24
Speaker
be able to rent something from an old store and you have to get clearances for it. That's why you see not very much good art on the walls in TV and movies nowadays. So it's changed a lot, a lot more difficult to rent to them and a lot more difficult to get clearances. And then the lawyers have stepped in and they're kind of want to play games and
00:17:54
Speaker
Nowadays, I have to fill out so many forms to be allowed to rent furniture to the movies. It's just craziness. Unbelievable. Sometimes not even worth it, probably. Right. In terms of modern manufacturers, I mean, there's obviously nothing like vintage, but in terms of modern manufacturers, is there anyone that's making retained furniture the right way? Yeah. There's a company back East,
00:18:23
Speaker
I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but Balenkey is the name of the company. Balenkey Brothers, I think it is. And they've been making furniture since the 1870s. Wow. So it's an old family company and they do a pretty good job on rattan furniture. But their new rattan furniture seems to be older than my, I mean, more expensive than my old rattan furniture.
00:18:51
Speaker
You know, why buy new because you can't really sell it when you're finished with it. But the old stuff, you know, keeps its value and keeps growing. I look at my price list from 1997 and it's like a joke. We all missed out. Yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
All right, Harvey, I wanna finish up here with the collectors you run down. This is a short list of questions that we ask all of our guests and you can answer them however you would like, short or long form, and it can be based on any of the collections you have, whether it's crystal balls or dice or old radios or retained furniture. Sounds good? Okay, sure. Okay, what's the one that got away? When I had my first store in Beverly Boulevard,
00:19:39
Speaker
A lady came in with a mersham pipe, and it was a hand-carved naked lady on a pipe.
00:19:47
Speaker
And it was just magnificent. And I was so excited about it that she got scared and said, oh, no, no, I'm going to think about it. I asked her what she wanted, but no, no, I want to think about it. And she left. So I learned never to get excited about things when they appear in front of me.
00:20:13
Speaker
How about the on-deck circle? So what's next for you when you're collecting or dealing? Maybe you could talk about the launch of Tropical Sun again.
Marketing Vintage Craftsmanship
00:20:22
Speaker
Well, I'm doing a lot of advertising. I've just launched my last week. I launched Facebook and Pinterest and all the social media places. And we're doing lots of advertising. And so we're going to launch a new company.
00:20:42
Speaker
with mostly vintage Rutan, some new, but not very much, but all vintage, because I have an awful lot of it, and the style of it and the workmanship to it are superior to what they do nowadays. So I'm real happy with what we're doing, and I'm looking forward to growing the company to be one of the leading Rutan companies for the world. As it always has been.
00:21:09
Speaker
as it always has been. Tropical Sun Ratan Company really started in Pasadena on Colorado Boulevard with an old diet that I met. His name was, I can't remember his first name, but his name was Mr. Fishback. And he started in 1934. I found ads and different things posted. And I bought the company in the late 70s, because they were doing only outdoor furniture
00:21:38
Speaker
and metal and awnings. They were big in the awning business. So I bought it and I bought a lot of old stock out of the old warehouse that they had that was never used from the 50s. And I still have one or two pieces with the original labels.
00:21:58
Speaker
or hanging tags on them. So I'm hoping to be as big as he was someday. I would say you having 200,000 square feet at one point is a pretty good mix of being close to probably what he had. Yeah. How about the unobtainable? So what's a piece of Rutan that maybe is in a museum or a private collection that you know of that is just so unobtainable that you just can't have it?
00:22:26
Speaker
Well, that doesn't occur in Rutan, because I've got one of the best couches that were ever made by Paul Frankl. It's in his book, and it's a nine-stranded square pretzel, and it's oversized. There's nothing like it ever. The cushions are bigger than all cushions.
00:22:51
Speaker
In the old days, you know, like all of my rattan, the cushions are 22 inches wide because of the old fabric was 48. So they cut the fabric in half with all the pretty picture on it and designs. And you'd have leftover, you could only have a maximum of a 22 inch cushion wide. So every cushion in my warehouse is basically 22 inches, give or take a half an inch.
00:23:18
Speaker
But Paul Frankl, he wanted to be different. So he made like the nine stranded square pretzel. The only one I've ever seen on the planet, besides in his book, it has oversized cushions. It's got 27 inch cushions wide and they didn't make fabric. So you had to buy his fabric that he would make for you with his designs on it in the old days. That's amazing. Unattainable? I don't think there isn't anything better than what I've got.
00:23:48
Speaker
That's great All right, the page one rewrite so if you could collect anything besides rattan or any of your other collections money no object What would it be and why? Huh, what could I collect today don't have? Well, the only other thing that I like are the 1920s and 30s thrones and ivories like japaras and those people but it's against the law in the United States and
00:24:15
Speaker
But I would love to own a lot of those pieces. They were legal in the old days when I used to go to Europe and see them. And I brought home a couple pieces that I owned and sold in the old days. But nowadays it's all, it's illegal. It shouldn't be because it's only a little tiny piece of ivory used on a bronze and ivory figurine.
00:24:41
Speaker
It's over 100 years old, so they ought to leave the old stuff alone and just outlaw the new stuff. I agree with not killing elephants, and the new stuff, there shouldn't be any new, but not to outlaw the old. How about the goat? So who do you look up to in the collecting world? Collecting world.
Passion for Collecting
00:25:06
Speaker
For example, was Barbara Streisand a great collector of furniture? And I know she bought a lot of pieces from you. Oh, yeah, she was a great collector. In her Malibu house, the guest house, which was the pool house, which was bigger than my house, which is, my house is pretty big, but that pool house had only retained furniture.
00:25:35
Speaker
Hawaiian memorabilia, pictures and art and everything, only just tons of rattan. And then her main house next to it was only Art Nouveau and Art Deco. And she was a collector. She had an auction a couple of years ago and outstanding pieces of Art Deco from all the best designers on the planet.
00:26:04
Speaker
mostly European. A little bit of Paul Frankel furniture that he made in the early days in New York City called Skyscraper Design. She was a great collector. And I've heard stories about how she had a basement that she had set up like a retail store. That's great. That's how much stuff she had. Did you get a chance to bid on any of the rattan stuff in her auction?
00:26:34
Speaker
No, the tan never came up. It was only the really great Art Deco and Art Nouveau stuff that came up for auction. But it was way too high. I'm not going to pay $200,000 for a standing floor lamp. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah. The hunt or the ownership? Which one do you enjoy more? Oh, the hunt. I still do it. I'm 80 years old. I am at the swap meets at five o'clock in the morning.
00:27:04
Speaker
Good for you. That's great. Keeps me young. Harvey, most importantly, do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene? I guess so. That's a great answer. I love it. Never heard, never thought about that.
00:27:23
Speaker
Harvey, thank you so much for coming on. I wish you all the best with the relaunch of Tropical Sun, and I'll be sure to put a link to that in the show notes so everyone could go check it out. And everyone always needs summer tan furniture, so Harvey's the guy. I am. And thank you so much for entertaining the world with me and everything else that you do. My pleasure. Chat soon. Bye, thanks.
00:27:51
Speaker
All right, that does it for this episode. Thank you all for listening to Collector's Gene Radio.