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Donna Lennard - Founder, il Buco
785 Plays3 days ago
Today, we’re thrilled to welcome Donna Lennard, a trailblazer who has redefined how we experience dining, design, and community.
Donna is the founder of the iconic il Buco family of restaurants—destinations renowned for their ingredient-driven Italian and Mediterranean cuisine—and il Buco Vita, a lifestyle and tabletop brand rooted in craftsmanship and cultural heritage. What began as an unassuming antique shop on Bond Street has, over the last three decades, blossomed into a beloved collection of spaces that feel more like homes than restaurants.
From her beginnings working in the kitchen to her journey into antiques and culinary artistry, Donna has built a world where every detail—from the handmade dishes to the plate it’s served on—tells a story. Her ability to bridge the worlds of collecting and curating, in both food and design, creates an atmosphere of warmth, connection, and timeless elegance.
Donna shares how it all started, the pivotal moments that shaped il Buco’s evolution, and the parallels between curating antiques and crafting unforgettable dining experiences. We’ll also explore the balance between consistency and evolution, the importance of community, and the future of il Buco’s ever-growing world. So with great honor, this is Donna Lennard, for Collectors Gene Radio.
il Buco - https://ilbuco.com/
Collectors Gene - https://collectorsgene.com/
il Buco's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ilbuconyc
Cameron's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cameronrosssteiner
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Transcript
The Unique Charm of El Buco
00:00:00
Speaker
The spaces at El Buco, all the restaurants have you know a piece of that original space. I think there's nothing like the Bond Street space because it's so it was so hand-wrought. It was never intended to be a restaurant, so it has what Bob Buccione Jr. said to me once. It's just slightly awkward, Donna, and that's what makes it so wonderful.
Exploring the Collector's Instinct
00:00:24
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 a bunch for listening and please enjoy today's guest on collector's gene radio.
00:00:48
Speaker
Today I'm thrilled to welcome Donna Leonard, a trailblazer who has redefined how we experience dining, design, and community. Don is the founder of the iconic Ilbucco family of restaurants, destinations renowned for their ingredient-driven Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, and Ilbucco Vita, a lifestyle and tabletop brand rooted in craftsmanship and cultural heritage.
Donna Leonard's Influence and Journey
00:01:08
Speaker
What began as an unassuming antique shop on Bond Street has, over the last three decades, blossomed into a beloved collection of spaces that feel more like homes than restaurants.
00:01:18
Speaker
From her beginnings working in the kitchen to her journey into antiques and culinary artistry, Donna's built a world where every single detail from the handmade dishes to the plate it's served on tells a story. Her ability to bridge the worlds of collecting, curating in both food and design creates an atmosphere of warmth, connection, and timeless elegance. Donna shares how it all started, the pivotal moments that shaped El Buco's evolution, and the parallels between curating antiques and crafting unforgettable dining experiences.
00:01:49
Speaker
We'll also explore the balance between consistency and evolution and the importance of community and the future of Ilbukko's ever-growing world. So with great honor, this is Donna Leonard for Collectors Geam Radio.
00:02:06
Speaker
Donna, what a pleasure to have you on Collectors Geam Radio today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm totally honored. It's my pleasure and I'm i'm grateful to the Dada Goldberg team for reaching out and putting us in touch because I'm such a fan of Ilbuko and what you've built. and I think the story is going to be really exciting for the listeners today. and I think my favorite part about your story is that Ilbuko actually started out as an antique shop.
00:02:31
Speaker
and Unless you've kind of been around since the beginning it's sort of this if you know you know thing insider baseball kind of thing and you know it's a big part of your story now and you have your own line of home goods but tell me how this all started and why you chose to open and then teach up after you were working in restaurants prior to that.
From Antique Shop to Culinary Pioneer
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah it's a kind of.
00:02:52
Speaker
unusual, slightly convoluted story. I came out of a ah personal disaster you know many years ago, um lost my fiancé to a brain aneurysm, and was working in a restaurant as a bartender at Arquo Restaurant on Church Street in Tribeca, peddling his screenplay and kind of recovering a year later, and met a crazy Italian guy named Alberto Avalle.
00:03:22
Speaker
who wanted to either move back to Europe or export Americana to Spain and Italy and had all these ideas about where to collect this Americana. He was absolutely infatuated with all of these things, old radios and old tools and toboggans and tricycles and early American quilts.
00:03:44
Speaker
And i was ready to I was ready to leave the country, um but he dragged me to these um antique fairs all along Pennsylvania. We would take our Suzuki Samurai down Route 78, and we'd go to all these fairs. And the pieces that were too big to keep in our little apartment on Avenue C and 11th Street, we left with um this couple that we came to know from these fairs who were up near the Finger Lakes in PA.
00:04:14
Speaker
and We were looking for a space and I one day drove across the cobblestones of Bond Street and saw spectra photo labs opening and pulled over. And then next door was this storefront with these whimsical chandeliers in the window. And I was drawn to it and went inside. It was a studio for these wonderful artists who were making um those whimsical chandeliers.
00:04:38
Speaker
um And a woman, one of their friends was down in the basement painting crop circles. And I got to know them and they were looking to rent out their backspace. They were in dispute with their landlord and he was raising the rent from 1750 a month to 2000 for this 2000 square foot beautiful space. And it turned out they knew Alberto and, you know, one of the clients at ARQUA used to buy Warren's chandeliers. The artist was Warren Muller, was the main artist, a guy named Michael Biello. And we ended up taking the space. They introduced us to the landlord. They had a ah
00:05:14
Speaker
a building they owned in Philadelphia, they decided to move back to Philly. And we took over the space and scraped the paint off the floors with Todd Nicky of Nicky Heeho and a friend of mine. And we went upstate with this couple from the Finger Lakes and we spent a week or so with them at auction and in different antique stores. And we filled two 17 foot trucks with antiques and we opened a store um at 47 Bond.
00:05:45
Speaker
What kind of antiques were you filling the store with back then? Primitive American country. So a lot of wood and a lot of beautiful primitive tables, you know, dark woods and pine and cabinets and tons of like 1940s and 1950s radios.
00:06:05
Speaker
and a huge collection of quilts. We started building beautiful old tools and copper pots and you know you name it. It was like an eclectic. We had a big pot belly stove that we had in the back and we created all these little vignettes in the space and opened
Evolution into a Cultural and Dining Hub
00:06:25
Speaker
the store.
00:06:26
Speaker
And we would, you know, have our little afternoon pronso or lunch that we would prepare in the back because there was a little what we called the Susie homemaker for burner stove and um a refrigerator and they had the professional, you know, stainless steel sink set up for the ceramics and We had the store going until we were like, okay, we need to make more money here. And it would be great to be able to serve little tapas and a little boutique list of wine and beer. And so we invited our landlords over for lunch one afternoon. And when they saw what we did with the space, they were pretty bold way and agreed to everything and agreed to let us become a little tapas bar. And after some crazy
00:07:14
Speaker
ah dispute with the people living above us who didn't want us to have that it was It was discovered that it was grandfathered before there was a couple that used to have a little speakeasy in the basement. So we were able to turn it into a little a little wine bar. And then you know it grew in leaps and bounds. First, you could buy the furniture and you could buy your table or your chair or the cupboard in the room. And after a few years of doing that, we said we didn't have time to do the antiquing anymore. And it really became more and more you know qualified restaurant.
00:07:47
Speaker
What was Bond Street like back then? Was it a big toss up to open a restaurant there or was the area growing quite a bit? There was nothing. was It was the only thing, the only commercial presence on the block was um Bob the furniture guy on the corner of Lafayette and Bond who had this kiosk on the corner that he would open up in the morning and pull out all these old antiques and put them on the street and and us.
00:08:14
Speaker
and crack vials all over the street. My parents were like, what the hell are you thinking? They were like, this is the coolest neighborhood in New York, you'll see. Right. You'll see a long time from now. And then it became peppered with antique stores. We had buying the farm and Stacey Sinlinger's rhubarb home and across the street capsued the French ladies and It became this little antique Mecca, and then Bob Furniture moved across the street to where J. Crew is now, um and he had a really legitimate store, and then the fashion came in with Ghost and Cationia Deli, and it just kind of kept morphing. Everything really grew around you guys, which is pretty impressive.
00:09:01
Speaker
Absolutely. And then Modern Link and back to from Modern Furniture, um there was another big Modern Furniture nuture store um two doors down. I can't remember the name of it. But it it was you know quite an evolution of the neighborhood. And we just kept really qualifying what we were doing and had it immediately a really wonderful following of neighbors and locals that just kind of the word spread by word of mouth.
00:09:28
Speaker
um and Really, a community grew around us.
Blending Antiques with Dining Experience
00:09:32
Speaker
You know, there's this ceremonious aspect to dining and gathering around a table the same way there is for a collector to share with others what they find. Did it feel like a natural transition to you to kind of do the tapas and then the wine bar and, you know, and then the whole restaurant? I mean, you guys were becoming cereal collectors filling the store with stuff. Did you approach opening Ilbuca the same way?
00:09:57
Speaker
I don't think we approached it in any way in the sense that in the sense that it wasn't it was so organic. Everything that happened, it wasn't really thought out like we're going to do this. But what really we were creating in our minds was a trading post. Like this is a trading post for objects, for ideas, for culture, for you know people to share thoughts around a table or to look at beautiful things and talk about them.
00:10:26
Speaker
So um that's, you and and and and this link between old world and new world was always threaded in there. And then, you know, we morphed, you know, we were kind of anti-gradios and quilts and tools and that kind of thing. And then we went to Spain and we collected beautiful cupboards from Spain and beautiful ceramics and things that kind of up to the game and gave it gave the space a little more sophistication over time. So I think that was also changing, yeah the space itself was changing. And we kept a piece from the original from from Warren and Michael and and Patricia, they had this um Harlequin design on the top of the of the the front piece of the store from like the first
00:11:17
Speaker
10 feet of the storefront were like a kind of showroom and the rest was just, you know, dark painted floors and white walls and kilns. But they had this little saying on the top of the wall that said, being there was like being in a museum. I was like an object on the shelf with other objects.
00:11:36
Speaker
And we still have that. you know We kept that little piece. Now you can't see it as well because of some of the things that have gone on. And then, of course, the chandeliers you know are are there still. And we continued to buy Warren chandeliers and fill the place with his chandeliers and then brought one of his chandeliers to alimentary when we opened. In fact, my son and I went down to Philadelphia to his space and we picked out all these objects, and he created this incredible chandelier that hangs in the atrium of, of elementary. That was probably a full circle moment for you, I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely.
00:12:16
Speaker
I think what I find really interesting is that you, you really started as a collector of antiques, right? You, you started to learn all about them and and what it was like and sourcing. And then you go to Spain and you're sourcing from Europe and all these things. And then you become a curator of restaurants. And I would love to know how you see the parallels between sourcing objects and then sourcing amazing ingredients for el buco. Is there, ah is there a parallel there?
00:12:42
Speaker
I think everything I do is very much about quality and really looking for like kind of the purity. Also down to earth ingredients. you know You want to get the best beat or the best piece of meat grown with love in an open field. you know like So you know the antiques are, you know you're looking for something that has like Beloved in it, the artisan craft, something special that speaks to you. you know It's a slightly different paradigm, but there's a lot of linkage, I think, there as well. like you want to You want to really focus on how to find quality and realness, you know like unmanufactured. Yeah, certainly. So unmanufactured food means you know no pesticides, no herbicides, you know
00:13:40
Speaker
the most natural farming methods and natural fresh. Yeah. Well, and part of collecting is also, you know, experiencing just like it is for dining, right? It's all about the experience. As much as the food is important, the experience is also just as important. And when you dine at the original Ilbuco, you can easily feel and see how it's still very much of an antique shop or what it was once like before you started even serving tapas. How important was it for you to keep that integral part of the ambiance and that charm to you know really propel Ilbuko to what it is today? but It was everything. I mean, that that is the the foundation of the brand, you know creating an environment that's warm and inviting and filled with all the things that you love. you know Even when you're antiquing, you know it's like
00:14:36
Speaker
you're not buying the stuff from the guy that you hate. you know like there if there's as If there's not a nice story behind it, you kind of move on. You know you try and buy it if you love it that much, but if it if there's something that's discordant, you you go to the next thing. um And I think you know you develop relationships with the people that you buy from or you get drawn to the artisan who's making something or to the producer who's growing grain or making olive oil. you know it's the the passion and the and the dedication that goes into it. So, you know, I think the spaces at El Buco, all the restaurants have, you know, a piece of that original space. I think there's nothing like the Bond Street space because it's so, it was so hand wrought, you know, it was never intended to be a restaurant. So it has
00:15:27
Speaker
what Bob Guccione Jr. said to me once, it's just slightly awkward, Donna, and that's what makes it so wonderful. you know It's not done. you know It's not symmetrical. right so
Craftsmanship and Cultural Heritage
00:15:39
Speaker
you know I think there's a lot to that. and Then the other restaurants have you know elements of that that came with you know bringing in the beautiful antique bottles or the beautiful antique table in the middle of elementary, the glass top ceramic table or the beautiful cupboards upstairs or, you know, the barrels of vinegar, you know, just the the pieces of of his history and an old beauty, like even keeping the old brick walls inside that were part of the lumber yard and using the joists to make the bar the old joists to to, you know, hone the furniture. So I think that, you know, combination of old and new
00:16:25
Speaker
And if people really didn't think that you are a collector to begin with, you end up launching Obuko Vita, your tabletop and lifestyle line. Are these objects and, and you know, home goods influenced from your years of collecting and traveling? Of course, yeah. I mean, my partners are are two cousins who um grew up in the same town as Alberto, my original partner um in Foligno in central Italy, Umbria.
00:16:51
Speaker
And you know for years before opening, we you know were like, we have to do an artisan home line. We know all the artisans here, that they the craft is are dying. you know We need to like support these people and create that we can create these beautiful things. So we talked about it for probably more than 10 years. and then When we opened Alimentary, they helped me with all the furnishings there, the antique pieces from Italy, and um and they started sourcing the the Vita line and sent over a container full of i artisan goods before I was ready to do anything with them. Of course I did.
00:17:31
Speaker
And we, you know, we did a little pop up up at the top of elementary and got a lot of interest and ended up taking the space two doors down on Bond Street on the second floor and opening a little showroom. And, you know, and Vita was born and it really was like full circle back to the beginning because we had, you know, it also included beautiful antique, you know, vessels and beautiful old pieces, but also these newly made beautiful pieces of real art from artisans all over central Italy, whether ceramics or hand-blown glass or one of our artisans you know uses all recycled glass from her neighbors. It makes these beautiful, whimsical pictures and crafts and glassware with wings and breasts, all kinds of things, um linens and you know marble mortars and pestles and you know carved wooden cutting boards out of old wood.
00:18:29
Speaker
so it's all you know It all brings back the same um the same feeling.
00:18:36
Speaker
Our tastes change when it comes to collecting. It's inevitable. One day you're collecting primitive furniture, the next day you're collecting Italian ceramics, and those two couldn't be more opposite. Even though they look great together, they couldn't be more opposite. And when it comes to food, of course,
00:18:54
Speaker
People will be willing to try new things, but they also expect a consistency and an overall palette when it comes to a place like Ilbuko, right? Your customers, no matter which restaurant of yours that they go to, they expect to have this remembrance of the last time they were there and what to expect, right? How do you manage your collector sensibilities changing while remaining this consistent approach to Ilbuko? I don't think of those two things as being, you know,
00:19:23
Speaker
in conflict with with one another. Look, there are many restaurateurs who open like different restaurants with different names that have very different kinds of food. And in that case, they would be like the collector changing taste, right? My brand is not that. Each of my restaurants has Ilbuko in the name. And even if they may vary slightly in terms of some sort of tonality, there's a connection with the food and the ingredient driven menu and the Italian Mediterranean sensibility. So yes, that is consistently followed. But even as, you know,
00:20:07
Speaker
starting with primitive American Edelbucho, alimentary has more of a little bit of an industrial feel thrown in with the ah primitive antiques. You know, Al Mare has also like some very modern elements thrown in. So I think all of those things work well. My apartment is ah is a combination of, you know, have I'm sitting at a big antique tavern table from Italy.
00:20:35
Speaker
with you know wishbone chairs around it and a prove console and a vegner bench in the corner. So I feel like those tastes really work together. I mean i feel like we can we can play with those different tonalities. It doesn't have to be only one line. Well, you know I think what's interesting is that you know, all this primitive furniture and and the mid-century and French antiques in your apartment that you're talking about, there's this cultural heritage around them. There's there's a story, there's a reason that that it's labeled as primitive or that it's labeled as mid-century, right? It's this era and this stamp in time. And what I find also interesting is that the menu at Ilbuco also serves as this
00:21:23
Speaker
element of cultural heritage. All the ingredients are so organic and fresh and and as perfect as could be. Do you think if you weren't collecting furniture and antiques that that had this cultural heritage behind it, that the menu at Ilbuca would end up looking different? he That's an interesting question. No, I don't think it would be different. ah I think, I mean, I think what you're speaking to is is kind of a personal taste. Like, you know, cultural taste goes across all of these disciplines, right? Like food and, and you know, decor. So I think that resonates with me. Like, what's what's clear about all the things that I collect or surround myself with is they're made by somebody who has a really strong connection to
00:22:21
Speaker
the handiwork or the design or not just throwing something together, right? It's very artisan made, whether it's mid-century modern or primitive country. There's a hand in there. There's the artist's hand and the the thought and the culture behind creating beauty. um And I think with food, um it's very similar. It's like you're, um you're seeking sometimes the most simple and authentic expression of ingredients in order to um to create something that's both flavorful but also healthy um and clean and nurturing.
00:23:11
Speaker
And then you can add whatever little je ne sais quoi comes from your very talented chef, that little ingredient that you don't even know that's in there, that just kind of brings the dish to life, just the way that a little flourish in a piece of furniture brings that piece to life. So I think there those parallels are are quite like beautiful to think about. Yeah, and that's actually something I really wanted to ask you about is, you know,
00:23:40
Speaker
As a collector and for the furniture and antiques that you add to your personal collection, right we we as collectors, we have this checklist that we go down the condition, provenance, you know ah like you said, whose hand was on it, whose hand made it. And it's the same thing for a menu item for you. Where is this ingredient coming from? um What farm, you know what what other You know ingredient source is this coming from that makes it so special would you say that there's any differences at all between the way that you collect. Antiques versus you know how you add a new menu item because to me it seems like they're kind of to one of the same. I think there's a lot of similarity except that.
00:24:22
Speaker
you know, there's more restriction in the menu items, maybe. right like and Like for collecting, you can go anywhere you can you can go in so many directions, right? If you went in that many directions with your food, it would just get too busy. Right. A bruise on your furniture a chair versus a bruise on ah on an ingredient's a little different. Right. So I think the collecting gives you like, there's a such a plethora of directions you can go and in my food, maybe not as many. like sure a little more You're a little more um limited. But you know look, there's some incredible ingredients out there. So you can go after whatever you want and mix things together and and find the the
00:25:07
Speaker
common ground or the or the special little substance that adds to your dish, um I guess in the same way that you can find um a special piece of pottery or a special you know little doodad that just hits your eye.
00:25:23
Speaker
Do you ever look back at your early days of collecting for the original Bill Buco antique store and think about how all of these small items or all of these tables and, and, you know, stoves and, and armors that you were collecting turned into a collection of restaurants. ah That's, that's interesting. I don't, I don't think about that, but, but yes, I mean, it's very true. They, they became my restaurants, you know, they became the,
00:25:51
Speaker
basis, the beauty, the beautiful touch that draws people in in my restaurants. I think without those pieces, my restaurants would not have the same draw and and excitement and and comfort.
Future of Il Buco and Donna's Vision
00:26:10
Speaker
Is there an object in your personal collection that has some sort of special significance to you or something that inspired a ah ah moment in your journey with Ilbuko or something that even just reminds you of of everything and all the success that you've had? That's so interesting. When you said that, what came to mind was the table in the middle of the restaurant, the the big long table nine.
00:26:37
Speaker
It's been there since day one. It's a pine, beautiful, 10-foot table that really was the kind of the this is kind of the of the restaurant. And people wanted to buy it like the entire time that we've had the restaurant. I mean, until we but we we stopped selling anything, but it was like, I want that table. Can I have that table? Even when we weren't selling anything, it was like, can we get a table? Would you sell that table? And I was like, no way.
00:27:06
Speaker
There's too many stories and too many secrets in that table now. Yeah, I guess that's just like, you know, one piece that's just um super special to me. With three decades of El Bugo's success, what excites you most about the future, whether it's a new restaurant or a new collection for Vida, something else entirely? What excites me most is no more restaurants. We're done.
00:27:33
Speaker
um What excites me is the lifestyle that's been created around El Buco. And I think building VEDA has given me that full circle to come back to what it is that I really love about what I do in restoration. I never considered myself a restaurateur until I opened Alimentary, which, you know, got its three stars in the New York Times and brought a lot of attention to the brand. And then, you know, El Mari just happened during COVID and You know, Ibiza happened because my crazy Italian partner Alberto went to Ibiza and found this little project. But what really excites me is the is the lifestyle piece and how with Vita we're able to like bring that into people's homes. So I think my my desire right now is to like follow that path.
Donna's Insights on Collecting
00:28:29
Speaker
And we have a couple new projects kind of in mind for playing around with that expansion. So in terms of you know expanding the Vita collection into other areas, maybe not maybe not just Italy, maybe we'll bring in some beautiful antique Moroccan rugs or beautiful pieces from Spain.
00:28:54
Speaker
you know i'm I was just in Spain in May and spent a lot of time with a friend whose mom is a big ceramic collector there and went looking around and she's invited me to go on a little tour with her, which I'd love to do sometime soon. Um, so it's, it's expanding into that. You know, maybe there's a place that has the food element, like our little elementary out East in the Vita store where you can see the two things live together, all the beautiful products from Alimentary in the Vita store where you can get a coffee or have a snack or experience food and the beautiful objects together.
00:29:34
Speaker
Certainly. Yeah, I urge everybody to go online and check out the whole Vita line. It's it's really special stuff. And ah it it certainly doesn't feel like ah brand new plates, but in the best way, they feel like they have character to them and they feel like you are transported to a different part of the world, somewhere in Europe and really, really great stuff. And I can't wait to see what you do next with that. Thanks so much. Me too. I'm excited.
00:30:02
Speaker
Let's wrap it up with the collector's dream rundown. You can answer these questions based on the antiques that you collect, based on the restaurant collection, the Vita collection, whatever you see fit you answer. So the first one is, what's the one that got away? Nothing. I love it. Yeah. Nothing got away. I feel like, you know, there's the thing that maybe you see in the moment and you want and you don't pick it up and you, but then there's the next thing. So I never, I don't have like that choppers remorse.
00:30:30
Speaker
What about, I'm curious to know, is there, was there ever a location for a el buco that you really wanted that just didn't work out? Maybe the rent just didn't make sense or, um, the location wasn't absolutely perfect, but the space was great. Yeah. We had, you know, look between opening el buco and elementary 17 years past. So during those 17 years, there were various things that came and went and they went because, you know, I was like, if it's not green lights all the way, we're not doing another one.
00:31:00
Speaker
And that happened numerous times until um that lumber yard on Great Jones came into my path. And that was a very ambitious and difficult project, um but we have a wonderful landlord and we work together to really rebuild that building structurally. So yeah, everything happens and it's time. I love it. How about the on deck circle? So what's next for you in collecting potentially something you're hunting after?
00:31:29
Speaker
I think I'm looking at these these Spanish ceramics as my next little spot. But i'm you know I'm open to everything. I was just in Japan last year, and there's there's lots over there that I covet, so. Yes. They do a good job of of making people want a lot of different different things. Yeah, absolutely. How about the unobtainable? So this is one that's too expensive in a museum. Private collection just complete unobtainium.
00:31:57
Speaker
Oh, so many things. I was just in a friend's um gallery for a Christmas christmas party on 25th Street and he had these incredible Japanese chairs with these like leather woven backs and this very worn patina. was They were amazing. So those are one. I'm sure they're thousands and thousands of dollars, I didn't even ask. um I love so many things in Gallery Half in LA. Oh, yeah, sure, forget it. Forget all of us, all of us. I'm beautiful. I was at the Noguchi Museum in Japan and, you know, I could go on and on. How about the page one rewrite? So if money was no object and you could collect anything else, what would it be?
00:32:49
Speaker
Probably more art. Yeah. Because if you can collect a lot of really expensive art, you could probably collect a lot of other things too. How about the goat? Who do you look up to in the collecting world or who do you think is ah another great collector? Well, the person closest to me that I think about often is my dear friend John Darien.
00:33:10
Speaker
I love what he does and I love his spirit and he's um very dear to me. I don't honestly follow that many collectors. I'm a very kind of quiet in my collecting. um There's um a guy that comes to mind. I just actually just looked him up again um when thinking about this podcast and um his name was Marty Jacobs. I just discovered he just passed away on December 11th. So strange that And he had um a place in South Egremont, Massachusetts called The Splendid Peasant. And it was a, he and his wife bought, I think her name was Kitty. They bought an old mill and they lived in the house and they created this incredible antique gallery um in one wing of the house that each piece was set up like as if it was a piece of art and a beautiful collection of
00:34:09
Speaker
of American folk art and beautiful primitive furniture, but of an incredible quality. um I think he was one of the special collectors that I really admired. How about the hunt or the ownership? Which one do you enjoy more? I like the ownership. I like sitting and looking at everything, but I certainly do enjoy going out. And I mean, I i love it all. But, you know, at the end of the day, you come back and These pieces are usually for keeps around you, and I love that. I love to like look back at the things and remember where they came from and the story behind picking them up and moving them around and from maybe from my New York house to my Hampton's house and giving them a different light or a different um atmosphere. Couldn't agree more. And most importantly, do you feel that you were born with the collector's gene?
00:35:09
Speaker
I guess I'd say it's kind of a soft innate gene um in the same way that I never considered myself a restaurateur. and didn't necessarily I don't necessarily think of myself as a collector. And when the data team told me about your podcast and coming on it, I said, but am I really a collector? And they were like, what are you talking about?
00:35:32
Speaker
Well, it's safe to say you certainly are after chatting today. it's It's no doubt. And I really appreciate you coming on the show today. It was it was really special for me. And next time I'm in New York, I'm coming. I'm sitting at that massive table in the original space, and we're going to have a coffee. I love that. Or maybe a glass of wine and some yummy food. I think we should do that too. OK. Sounds like everything so much. Thanks, Donna. Take care. Bye.
00:35:59
Speaker
Alright, that does it for this episode. Thank you all for listening to collector's gene radio