Style mavens, rejoice. An adorable design mecca opens tomorrow in Wilton.
Lost and Found is the dream child of husband-and-wife team Andrew and Donna Clarke who bring 20-plus combined years of design and fabrication experience to their new home furnishings store tucked up behind Wilton Jewelers in the Crossways Plaza right off of Rt. 7 (300 Danbury Rd., Suite 410 to be exact). Self-described as a place to find “quality vintage home furnishings with character and individuality,” the Clarkes scour the country looking for perfect pieces with the potential to become a room-defining fixture in a home. They specialize in refinishing, repairing and redesigning these unique items to add a newer and more modern perspective.
“This is something we’ve always wanted to do together and we finally decided that now is the time to do it,” Andrew said. “Whenever we found antiques that fit our esthetic, or anything that we think is cool, we stash it and have all this stuff that we just love and want to fix up one day. Now we’re fixing it up and selling it, keeping the cycle going.”
The store is a second career for both of them. Andrew works full-time in fabrication for retail stores in Manhattan, designing window displays and sets for photo shoots and counting Diane von Furstenberg, Ralph Lauren, Karl Lagerfeld and Christian Louboutin among his clients. Donna is a part-time fashion designer of high-end denim and part-time stay-at-home-mom with their 3-year-old son, Noah. They’ve set up shop in Wilton because it’s where Donna grew up too.
“Donna was born and raised in Wilton, and now we live here. When we had our son, we decided this is it, it’s a great area to raise him. We lived in Williamsburg and knew we wanted to come to Connecticut. I love it, I fly fish, my son loves being outdoors, I love being outdoors, it’s perfect,” Andrew explained, adding that it’s an ideal location for getting back into the city when necessary.
This weekend marks the official opening of Lost and Found, and they’re inviting people to come by, starting with an open house party on Friday night, 6-9 p.m.. “The launch party, we’d love people to come by, we’ll have food and wine, and we just want to let people know what we’re doing. We’ll do this once a month, same thing–have the party, people can come peruse almost like an art gallery. And then Saturday and Sunday we’ll be open too.”
The store will be open the first weekend of every month and then by appointment. They’ll work with interior designers and individuals. “We’re always buying stuff because we’re always all over the place. It would be nice to build relationships with interior designers, to be able to scout out different furniture for them,” Andrew said. They’ll spend the majority of the month finding and re-making items for the first-weekend monthly sales with the aim for each item to be unique.
He points out a 100-year-old architect’s table that he’s in the midst of finishing up for the opening; he complete remade it, replacing a “horrible” linoleum top with tin that he’s aged. He describes needing to wax, repaint and wax again. “Pieces like that take a lot of work, they throw curveballs at you because they were built 100 years ago.” It looks like it’s going to make an amazing statement piece for a dining room that will one day be featured in Architectural Digest.
“Our style is eclectic, we run the gamut. We really appreciate everything for what it is, its heritage. We may fix something and change the color or the fabric to make it more appealing. Some pieces we don’t have to do anything to. Some have timeless silhouettes, like that,” he said, pointing to a mid-century modern chair. “Eclectic with an appreciation for the past of every piece,” is the way that Andrew describes the overall theme of the store.
They have a burgeoning Facebook page as well as a website, from which they do sell some pieces. But the emphasis is really on the weekend sales.
Andrew said they also will be carrying some local artists and craft items, perfect for gifts–bath salts, stationery, and other things beyond antiques.