Alan Eckstein, a founder of Somerset House, a buzzed-about furniture shop, is the first to admit he has a shopping problem. “It’s as serious of an addiction as anything,” he said of his love for vintage furniture and other rarities.
He bids on pieces from Live Auctioneers, 1st Dibs, Drouot and other private dealers. He gestured to his phone, which was face down on the coffee table. “If I were to look now, there are probably hundreds of notifications,” he said in his new showroom in Long Island City, Queens, which is filled with pieces from 20th century design titans such as Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret, Lina Bo Bardi and Charlotte Perriand.
A former fashion designer, Mr. Eckstein, 40, has successfully parlayed his obsessive and autodidactic knowledge into a full-time career as a furniture dealer, real-estate stager and interior decorator, all under the imprimatur of his five-year-old company, which he runs with his wife, Haley Loewenthal, a former fashion stylist.
In 2010, Mr. Eckstein, along with Timo Weiland, a fashion publicist, and Donna Kang, a creative director, founded Timo Weiland, a New York City-based men’s wear line named after Mr. Weiland. It was praised by critics, won awards and sold well, but the world of retail was a grind. After shuttering that line, Mr. Eckstein founded Everyone Wins, a label that worked with vintage and used clothing. In 2019, after two years in business, he shut down that company as well.
With Somerset House, Mr. Eckstein acknowledges that he is part of a larger migration from fashion into interiors. Luxury houses, such as Louis Vuitton and Hermès, now have home collections, and celebrity home tours are ubiquitous.
“The home became a source of creativity for everyone during Covid,” Mr. Eckstein said. Collecting antique furniture also appeals to him because of the quality of craftsmanship. (Mr. Eckstein has no desire at the moment to manufacture new products.) He added: “Today, things are made to be thrown out and have a life span of five-ish years.”
Dana Arbib, who in 2019 shut down her own fashion brand, A Peace Treaty, followed a similar path. “Fashion was too intense,” said Ms. Arbib, who now makes home wares out of Murano glass. “You don’t have a life. And it’s quite wasteful.”
She added: “Both of us moved to a place where it’s slower, more precious, more collectible, as opposed to just production, production, production. “And it’s probably a response to the fashion world.”
Somerset House — the name is borrowed from the street in Long Island where Mr. Eckstein grew up — was born during the pandemic. He had been staging houses as a side hustle and had accumulated a large collection of furniture. When retail rents fell in Brooklyn in 2020, he asked to take over a storefront, offering to stage the landlord’s other properties and also give the landlord a cut of his sales. The gambit paid off, bringing in not just foot traffic, but customers who wanted Mr. Eckstein to help decorate their spaces. Now the company is housed in a 10,000-square-foot space located in a former factory called The Metropolitan in Long Island City.
These days, Mr. Eckstein has notable clients such as Benny Blanco, Robert Pattinson, Pom Klementieff, Zach Bryan and Athena Calderone. He has worked on the home of the architect Michael Arad. He also stages multimillion-dollar homes, such as two for the Brooklyn broker Lindsay Barton Barrett, including a Cobble Hill townhouse currently listed for $22 million.
“Everyone was talking about this guy who was a magician and had the best vintage,” recalled Mr. Blanco, who initially bought a table from Somerset House. “One time, he came to my house, he smoked a bunch of weed and walked around. He told me to move my table and push something else against a wall. He was just a mad scientist running around with a joint in his left hand and a cellphone in his right hand showing me vintage art pieces he was bidding on at auction. He’s some sort of Willy Wonka furniture magician.”
While Somerset House carries many recognizable items, like an Ettore Sottsass bar cabinet, there are also numerous pieces of unknown provenance, chosen simply because Mr. Eckstein likes how they look. He is less focused on brand recognition, and more on sensibility (his prices, however, can be hefty; Somerset can charge tens of thousands for a single item). He appreciates patina, and doesn’t object to scuffs or marks or other signs of use. The final result, however, is an apartment or house that doesn’t look as if it were generated from a Pinterest board.
“Noguchi balls are everywhere,” he said, gesturing to a paper light fixture designed by the midcentury Japanese artist that was hanging above his head. “They’re in every house in Cobble Hill. But they’re still the greatest lamp that ever happened.”
“It’s happiness,” he added. “They change your mood.”
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