Tahoe, where they were safe, and had been for many years. And in what felt like a moment of madness, she convinced Alex to let her rent the house the next day, when she called him. By the time she got back to Tahoe two days later, they had a store in San Francisco, and the start of a business. Eleanor wanted to call it Deveraux-Allen, which sounded very distinguished to both of them. The store itself needed a coat of paint inside, and some spotlights to focus on the best pieces.
Her excitement was contagious, and by mid-April, the store had been painted, the lighting installed, and they were ready to move into the apartment above the store, and open the business.
Two long moving vans came to take a large number of the antiques to San Francisco. Eleanor drove down to meet them, and start furnishing the apartment, and tell them where she wanted the antiques placed in the store. Some of them looked truly magnificent. Her parents had left her a barn full of treasures, and she realized again that her mother had been right to keep them. They were an important inheritance for Eleanor and for their future, although her mother had kept it all out of sentiment.
They opened at the end of April, and the store looked impressive. Eleanor had found the guest list from her wedding in her mother’s papers, and sent everyone on it an elegant-looking invitation to come and see the store. She knew that once they did, they would want to buy something, or tell friends who could. She put one of their most beautiful Louis XV commodes in the front window. It had previously been in their drawing room, and was a magnificent piece. It was signed and worthy of a museum, the most elegant drawing room, or a chateau.
They made their first sale four days after they opened, to a woman who had just moved to San Francisco from New York. She asked Eleanor if she would come to her new home to give her advice about what to place where. Her furniture had just arrived from New York.
Eleanor went to her address the following afternoon, she had just bought a beautiful mansion on upper Broadway, not far from Alex’s old house, although much less grand. The house had good proportions and pretty rooms, but she had no idea how to decorate them. She explained to Eleanor she wanted to have the most beautiful home in San Francisco, and she wanted Eleanor’s help to achieve it. She was a widow and her industrialist husband had left her a great deal of money, and she wasn’t sure how to spend it.
Eleanor spent two hours with her, making suggestions, and the woman bought three more pieces from them the next day. Eleanor’s goal was to fill the rooms with beautiful furniture and objects that the woman loved and help her to establish the elegant home she wanted. Eleanor was happy to introduce her to other dealers too, although she didn’t know many, and what Eleanor’s mother had left her was prettier than anything else in town, in any other store.
Business was excellent in May and June. Some of her parents’ friends showed up and it was nice to catch up with them. They came out of nostalgia and were sad to learn of her parents’ deaths. Many had had severe reversals and had never recovered and had come to the shop out of curiosity. Others still had some money left and bought a piece or two of the Deveraux furniture they had always admired. And there were total strangers who came, had money to burn, and Eleanor was happy to help them do it. Most of them relied on Eleanor’s taste, and loved what they bought from her.
By July, they had a thriving business on their hands, and Alex and Eleanor were enjoying it thoroughly. Eleanor’s idea had been brilliant, and the experiment had worked. Alex and Eleanor were ecstatic. Alex said it was much more fun than working in a bank and a lot more lucrative. And she was enjoying it more than she had teaching although she’d been grateful for the job.
The best news of all was that Deveraux-Allen was a resounding success, and Alex and Eleanor could work on it together. Decidedly, their new chapter had begun with a bang.
Chapter 12
Deveraux-Allen rapidly became the most respected antique shop in San Francisco, almost from the time they opened it,