An elegantly attired woman, dressed in a classic beige cashmere jacket and tailored black trousers, checks herself out in an ornate Italian mirror. But she’s not touching up her makeup or fixing her hair. No, she’s staring at the heavy medieval helmet covering her face. The store’s owner, John Deterer, calls out a jocular warning across the crowded showroom, cautioning her not to get stuck in this metal contraption, a replica he recently imported from India. Somewhat embarrassed, the antiques lover quickly pulls it off, her blonde hair swinging to her shoulders, and says with a laugh, “I think I saw that on an episode of ‘Lucy.’”

Indeed, an entertainment theme does run through the Gatsby Collection’s hundreds of unique furnishings and thousands of decorative items from around the world. Shoppers with an eye for kitsch can chose from a four-foot-tall statue of Blues Brothers John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd adorning a rack of pool cues (five just like it have sold for $400 each), or a life-size, trench-coated Humphrey Bogart, which stands in a doorway like a greeter at Wal-Mart. The lawn “furnishings” crowding the store’s yard—oversized urns, roaring lions, rearing horses, stone fountains and
statuary—would add pizzazz to Tony Soprano’s New Jersey McMansion.

The store, which opened on the road to St. Michaels in 2001, has grown into an overwhelming, 4,500-square-foot labyrinth of rooms, hallways, nooks, and the proverbial crannies stuffed with great finds. This is the Filene’s Basement of house and garden. And like Filene’s, there is something for everyone—from vintage, finely carved European furniture to contemporary stained-glass windows to hand-woven wool rugs. Late nineteenth-century French hunt chairs ($200 to $2,000) bleed into rococo salon sets ($1,800 to $3,900) which bump into 1920s art deco sofas ($500 to $2,500).

Gatsby’s is also an homage to the world of animals—be they stone, stuffed, or synthetic. Fiberglass statues from the Philippines include finely detailed carousel horses (every so often Deterer comes across a desirable vintage one), life-size black and white cows, and a seven-foot great white shark. A taxidermed leopard stretches out on a tree limb jutting out from a high shelf. This specimen, I find out, was brought down by the same born-to-kill hunter from Nebraska who snagged the seven-foot-tall grizzly looming in yet another room; evidently John bought out an estate sale in exotic animals.

Cheryl Deterer, John’s wife and business partner (an accountant previously), handles the day-to-day operations while he scours the world looking for merchandise and purchasing agents to do additional scouting. John recently sped through France, Belgium, and Holland in a blur of five days, buying enough goodies to fill a forty-foot ship’s container. These buying sprees and international agents are necessary to maintain the couple’s simple business philosophy: Keep the selection of products at a maximum and markups at a minimum (much below other retailers), thus assuring a quick turnover of their $1.3 million inventory. Like Filene’s, bargains abound.

“I buy what I think is interesting,” John says. “My taste is eclectic.” So is his background. A business consultant in Oklahoma and then Connecticut, the sixty-year-old has been involved with restaurants, hotels, construction companies, even an amusement park (that influence can occasionally be seen as one wanders from room to room). As a troubleshooter, he was often called upon to turn chaos into cash. The real estate collapse in New England in the late 1980s truly tested his powers of creativity. “I had clients with large buildings and shopping centers that became vacant,” he says. “Others had to liquidate lots of stuff they couldn’t afford to keep around. So I set up some shops and began dabbling in the antique resale business.”

The Deterers left Connecticut to return to Maryland in 2000 (he was born and raised near Baltimore, but resettled in St. Michaels). There, he continued his consulting business and began buying and selling properties. One piece of prime real estate he held onto: Haddaway’s Garage, located on the northbound side of Route 33. From there, his modest interest in antiques grew and grew into the Gatsby’s Collection.

“Whenever people would come to visit us, we’d take them to Gatsby’s,” says Mary Ortiz, who first discovered the store with her husband, Manny, when they furnished their Japanese-style house on the Miles River. (The couple recently took delivery of a ten-foot-long pine farm table, which they special-ordered for their New Jersey beach house.) John often volunteered to search out hidden treasures for them. “It’s such a fun place to go,” says Ortiz. “Even the kids loved it, with its stuffed bears, suits of armor, and old-fashioned toys.”

People were fascinated with Gatsby’s even before it formally opened its doors. “We put some wrought-iron outdoor furniture and urns out front while we were still under construction,” Cheryl says. “People began pulling off the highway to buy them. We didn’t even have sales receipts. Our pieces were unique; we’re not a cookie-cutter operation. That’s why we’ve been so successful.”

Two years ago, the Deterers bought an acre across the highway with two existing warehouses. Here, in this additional 12,000 feet of both display and storage space, John keeps his personal favorites, such as the massive Italian and French Renaissance furniture from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some going for almost $8,000. Two forklifts stand at the ready outside to move the constantly
arriving statuary. Now John doesn’t have to hesitate about bringing back those large marble estate lions from Belgium or cast iron horses from China.

Not all of Deterer’s finds arrive ready for the sales floor. The piles of fabric swatches filling one corner of a room, from chintz to corduroy, are
evidence of the reupholstering done in-house. More extensive restoration jobs are turned over to carpenters Gene D’Onofrio and Mike Dillon, who work in the shop on-site—refinishing, repairing, doing whatever is needed to put that old but deserving piece into salable condition.

Recently, they converted a French Renaissance cupboard into a gun cabinet, but they also are called upon to turn John’s designs into custom-designed pieces. Another small building houses resident decorative artist Sue Hunt, who spiffs up a dresser with a floral application or personalizes a pillowcase with a smattering of flowers. Today, she’s painting a gold leaf design across the headboard of a four-piece 1920s French bedroom set; it will go on sale for around $4,500.

It’s these special touches that draw regulars to the antiques giant; Gatsby’s has become a tradition for customers near and far. The store has three trucks that travel the Eastern seaboard alone; shipments regularly leave for as far away as California and Bermuda. A $1,000, free-standing Gothic shelf, which John located in Europe, now waits in his warehouse ready to be crated and dispatched to its new home in Oklahoma.

Even the holy have found a temporary home here: Gatsby’s has sold three seven-foot bronze statues of Jesus from Thailand, one of which resides at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Easton. Sometimes, even John is surprised at the reactions.

“I came to work early one Sunday morning to find a Hispanic family kneeling in front of a statue of Jesus,” he says. “They never said a word to me. They just finished praying, got into their car, and drove off.”

Which proves, perhaps, that shopping at Gatsby’s can be a heavenly experience in more ways than one.

Gail Buchalter writes from her home in Rhodesdale. Check out http://www.gatsbyscollection.com for more home and garden fun.