arts & life

shopping

Mid-century modern
Danish, Italian and
American designs offered
at Le Shoppe Too

(Mid-Century) Modern Love

Suzanne Chessler | Contributing Writer

The four owners of

Le Shoppe Too share

a passion for design

and helping the

people who crave it.

Love, a signed and numbered
lithograph by Robert Indiana

details

The 53rd-annual Bloomfield
Antique and Collectibles Show
runs Friday-Saturday, Oct. 7-8, at
Cross of Christ Lutheran Church
in Bloomfield Hills, $8 admission
(248-646-5886). Friday-Sunday,
Oct. 14-16, Le Shoppe Too will
hold a tent sale set up in its
parking lot (248-481-8884;
leshoppetoo.com).

D

eborah Slobin was look-
ing for a new career —
and ended up looking to

the past.
Slobin, who returned to
Michigan seven years ago after 20
years of living in Florida, had lost
her enthusiasm for selling foods to
high-end hotels and restaurants. A
friend, Julie Sundberg, suggested
they go into the resale business
focusing on mid-century modern
furnishings.
In her definitive 1984 book,
Mid-Century Modern: Furniture
of the 1950s (Harmony Books),
author Cara Greenberg wrote,
“Multipurpose became a catch-
phrase,” motivated by a desire
for post-war simplicity and
economics. “This new furniture
stacked, folded and bent; it was
rearrangeable and interchange-
able; it nested and flexed.” And
many of the most lasting — and
highly collectible — designs had
connections to Michigan: design-
ers and manufacturers including
Eero Saarinen, George Nelson,
Harry Bertoia, Florence Knoll,
Herman Miller and more.
With funding from Hebrew
Free Loan, Slobin and Sundberg
launched Le Shoppe in Walled Lake
in 2011. As they assembled inven-
tory from estate sales and dealers
with wider offerings, they met Rick
Behar and Leslie Miller (owners
of Managed Estates), joined forces
and established Le Shoppe Too in
Keego Harbor in 2014.

Furniture, fine art, lighting and
occasionally Judaica — essentially
designed between the 1950s and
1970s — fill 17,000 square feet
in settings staged to show how
the items could be placed in well-
appointed homes.
This weekend, samples from
Le Shoppe Too will be part of the
53rd-annual Bloomfield Antique
and Collectibles Show running
Friday-Saturday, Oct. 7-8, at Cross
of Christ Lutheran Church in
Bloomfield Hills, where jewelry
and wearables will be among the
featured items from other present-
ers. The owners of Le Shoppe Too
will be on hand to offer appraisals
in addition to selling their wares.
The next weekend, Oct. 14-16,
Le Shoppe Too will hold a tent sale
set up in its parking lot.
“We will have about 50 items at
the Bloomfield show, but we won’t
know until the very last minute of
truck loading what we will include,”
Slobin explains. “Because we have
a consignment shop, we want to
keep inventory on the floor as long
as possible.”
The store, with prices gener-
ally ranging from $50-$3,000,
also holds web auctions so that
shoppers outside the area can have
access to what is being sold, wheth-
er an Alexander Calder artwork or
a Milo Baughman chair.
“We are the largest mid-century
modern store in the country,”
Slobin. “I am always honored and
thrilled to be invited into people’s

homes to appraise what they own
and evaluate it for our business.
“I look for the quality and condi-
tion of merchandise to offer for
sale, and we have a team of uphol-
sterers, refinishers and cleaners to
bring any item of value into prime
appearance. We want our goods to
bring beauty and uniqueness into
our customers’ homes.”
Slobin learned the business by
doing lots of research and getting
mentoring from those with experi-
ence. She calls on Terri Stearn,
formerly with the Janice Charach
Gallery in West Bloomfield, to do
fine art appraisals.
“Michigan, particularly with
the work of the Saarinen family
at Cranbrook, is a hub for mid-
century modern pieces,” Slobin
explains. “I call whatever we offer
‘functional art.’”
As the four owners of Le Shoppe
Too work together, their responsi-
bilities are divided.
Slobin takes care of the furni-
ture, online store and customer
service. Sundberg, with more
generalized commitments, mainly
focuses on procurement, refinish-
ing items and shipping. Behar, also
owner of Sports Car Central, lends
his experience to professional ath-
letic memorabilia. Miller, a full-
time art teacher in the Ferndale
school system, evaluates art and
antiques.
Le Shoppe Too holds between
four and eight estate sales every
month, but Slobin leaves that to

others. She’d rather go hunting
for objects in homes and small
resale shops, looking for the geo-
metrically shaped furnishings that
characterize the time period of the
partners’ specialty.
Slobin’s most memorable find
was scooped up during a road trip
to Grand Rapids with Sundberg.
The two had been disappointed
until they reached a small shop
that looked uninviting from the
outside.
“One of my favorite designers is
Paul Evans, who makes uniquely
beautiful metal furniture,” Slobin
explains. “On our way to Grand
Rapids, we joked about finding a
Paul Evans piece although think-
ing that was an impossibility.
“Then, we stepped into that
shop and noticed a Paul Evans cof-
fee table in a corner. The price was
$75 less 20 percent because it was
on sale. We bought it and sold it in
48 hours for $6,000!”
Slobin says she stays away from
personal collecting because there
are too many items she would
be tempted to keep for herself.
Ultimately, she wants the best
and most extensive array to offer
customers.
“I advise customers considering
an item to imagine how it would
look in their own homes,” she
says. “I consider myself a foster
mom for all the items we take in,
and I keep a scrapbook of pictures
people send me showing how the
items look in their homes.”

*

October 6 • 2016

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