Shop Scout: Kent Home
After spending over 20 years on the wholesale side of designer menswear in New York City, working for labels Donna Karan, Hugo Boss, and Calvin Klein, Michael Kalesti decided to pursue a retail endeavor of his own. This spring, after dabbling in restoring mid-century furnishings (he had a company called Rescue), Kalesti opened home furnishings shop Kent in Chappaqua, New York, an upscale suburb of the City.
The aesthetic is very clean, but by no means slick. The building itself is an old home built in the early 1900s. Kalesti gutted the space, which has been a storefront for about 60 years. He kept the original, rustic wood floors, but painted everything else white.
The shop carries smaller pieces of furniture, lighting, gifts, home accessories, and collection objects that are a mix of new and vintage. He scours estate sales, “I bought a cool screen divider from the 1930s yesterday,” he says. “Each frame is filled with clear plastic panels between which there are real butterflies, bugs, leaves. It needs a little work, but that’s okay.” He also brought back an iron pedestal that he’ll probably probably make into a foyer table, by topping it with a round piece of marble or beveled glass. “I look beyond the condition of things and that’s what inspires me . . . It’s crazy what people throw away.”
While Kalesti’s a regular on the estate and tag sale circuit—he once bought a piece of pottery for $5 that was worth $600—he’s quite partial to eBay, though he describes himself as “fairly new” to the process. He says, “Owning a store and being committed to certain hours it’s great to have a resource like eBay that let’s you find things without leaving the shop, and, with enough margin to make a profit.” (Never mind he actually bought a car on eBay Motors last August—a Porsche Targa no less.)
Indeed, many of the vintage items at Kent were purchased on eBay. There are poker sets from the 1920s to 1950s complete with chip-filled Bakelite carousels and vintage corkscrews from all over the world, all of which he bid on individually. “I always have a dozen on hand,” he says. Other merchandise sourced on eBay includes a side table from Lane. Kalesti notes, “Lane was a very important furniture maker in the ‘50s and ‘60s in Virginia; their pieces are starting to come into their value right now.” One of his favorite finds—an important floor lamp from early ‘60s—just arrived. And then there’s the Barbini egg table lamp, a ‘70s Murano glass piece. “It’s a crazy,” he says fondly.
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