If house addicts can be divided into Architecture People vs. Stuff People, which is to say Renovators vs. Antiquers, or even more narrowly Decorators vs. Collectors, then I am always in the former group. I’m stirred more by a porch makeover than by the search for a tabouret “with original finish.” Experiencing a room as a whole, I’ll likely miss the priceless items in a collection.
Others have remarked on this schism. “Decorators tend to see objects in the context of a room, while the eyes of a collector always fall on a single object,” wrote memoirist Thatcher Freund in an essay about the decorator Mario Buatta. “Encountering a tasteless room full of beautiful objects—no less than encountering the tasteful room full of ordinary things—helps one appreciate people who care about both,” he says.
Most collectors are drawn to the stories that objects tell, about their makers or about the past.
Patricia Poore,Editor
ppoore@homebuyerpubs.com
10 Harbor Rd., Gloucester, MA 01930
Patricia Poore is Editor-in-chief of Old House Journal and Arts & Crafts Homes, as well as editorial director at Active Interest Media’s Home Group, overseeing New Old House, Traditional Building, and special-interest publications.
Poore joined Old House Journal when it was a Brooklyn-brownstoner newsletter in the late 1970s. She became owner and publisher and, except for the years 2002–2013, has been its editor. Poore founded the magazines Old-House Interiors (1995–2013) and Early Homes (2004–2017); their content is now available online and folded into Old-House Journal’s wider coverage. Poore also created GARBAGE magazine (1989–1994), the first unaffiliated environmental consumer magazine.
Poore has participated, hands-on, in several restorations, including her own homes: a 1911 brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and a 1904 Tudor–Shingle Style house in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where she brought up her boys and their wonderful dogs.
