They say you can't go home again. Turns out, you can.

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For 15+ years, the recognizable historical big red barn and brick house at U.S. 23 and Ohio 315 in Delaware County was the place that I called home for the majority of my auction career and my family when I raised four small children there alongside a burgeoning business. But for decades before me, antique enthusiasts from across the country made semi-annual pilgrimages to gather, share, and compete for some of the best material offered nationwide.

 

In the 1950s, Garth Oberlander bought the property at 2690 Stratford Road and in 1967, he tripled the staff from one to three when he hired my late business partners and friends, Tom & Carolyn Porter. Together they cultivated a community of buyers and sellers that would grow to include some of the biggest, most legendary names in the art and antique business - and they had fun doing it.

 

From Peter Tillou to Bill Samaha - and his parents before him; from the Sacks of New York to midwestern icons like Clark Garrett and the Momchilovs, these people called Garth's Barn (now known as The Barn at Stratford) home - and they looked forward as much to the warm atmosphere, lemon meringue pie, and Carolyn's irises out front as they did the scholarly exchanges inside and the breathless anticipation as the saleroom buzzed with excitement for that next great piece that would soar past estimates to land on the pages of Maine Antique Digest, Antiques & the Arts Weekly (aka The Bee), and Ohio Antique Review.

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For countless others in the antique community, The Barn has served as a home base, incubator, and regular stomping grounds.