Do old furniture have an aura? Repair, re-use, recycle.

Furniture and objects of utility are always witnesses of a lived human life. They stay behind, and often they are the only trace of a human being who has disappeared. When the person was famous, they seem to keep and remind us of the nimbus of this person. They become a valuable artifact, almost sacred, as if it were a reflection of this person’s glory.

Clearance sale of the Ritz hotel furniture. One, two, three. Adjudicated.

The Hotel Ritz, 15, Place Vendome, Paris. This world famous Grand Hotel certainly has an aura. For 120 years, it is THE address in Paris, the epitome of luxury. They all stayed there: Maria Callas, Lauren Bacall, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway and Erich Remarque, Gina Lollobrigida, Ingrid Bergman, Roger Moore and Woody Allen. Elton John and Madonna, Lady Diana on the terrible last night of her life. Coco Chanel was a regular guest and had a suite of her own. This illustrious list of the “beautiful and rich” over the decades could be continued endlessly. After several years of renovation, the Ritz now shines in new splendor. And more than 10,000 pieces of furniture, furnishings and everyday items from the luxury hotel, which literally did not find a room, will be auctioned off.

Furniture as testimony for glamour, glow, pomp and circumstance of human existence

The public is highly interested in all the artifacts of the Ritz myth, and to become part of the game, you do not even have to travel in person. You can also bid online in a relaxed way. A harp from the “Proust Suite”, plush sofas, stools, curtains, the supposedly very first bathtub of the house, admittedly now badly in need of renovation, and yes, even a garden gate with Ritz emblem. How does it feel to give these things a new home? Do they keep their nimbus, their special shine? Surely, beauty always is in the eye of the beholder. But we are sure, that objects actually preserve their aura when linked to a memory or association. People leave things behind, often as the only trace of their existence.

Not that famous, but a highly personal thing: Our recycled furniture

In our hotel there are many used utensils, which we keep and continue using, because we regard this as a key matter of sustainability. It’s certainly not the artifacts of glamorous celebrities, but ordinary everyday items that are – with all their traces of use, one or two scratches or this little battered corner – a sign of a truly lived human life. Our house is actually filled with things that have already been used, which have their own charm and patina. Even when we renovate our rooms, we do not furnish them with new furniture.

(Re-)used furniture become „favorite pieces“ and very familiar „room mates”

There are a couple of things in our house that seem to be quite „useless“, such as, for example the old, elegant Broadwood Grand piano in our breakfast room. Not to be played, but beautiful, and maybe 200 years old, as the serial number suggests. For some of our regular guests their respective favorite room (and if it is possible, of course we fulfill every room request!) is often connected to a special object or furniture. For example, the old captain’s secretary with a compartment in the front that could be filled with a briquette, for warm legs in a stormy-cold night at sea. The tiny Venetian mirror, that is almost blind, and thus, more of a decoration than commodity. Or the elegant dressing table with the large folding mirror as an element of a complete bedroom furniture from the 20s of the last century.

Search for traces: How a piece of furniture turns into a trace of a lived human life. A true story.

In fact, this specific bourgeois bedroom furniture in our room No 12 does definitely tell a story. Because many of our guests especially are instantly reminded of their childhood in this room. Thy remember how they visited their grandmother, and that where they were allowed to spend the night in the big bed. Exactly this is what a guest remembered and talked to us about who told us about when he arrived and we showed him to this room. His grandmother had a grand bedroom with that kind of furniture, exactly like that, and as a child he’d enjoyed sleeping in a huge bed when he visited her. Somehow or other, these are the more or less similar memories and associations told quite often by our guests. However, when this particular guest came for breakfast the next morning, he had a story for us that actually baffled us (and still comes to our mind quite often because it seems to be too “fateful” for being mere chance!): In the evening of his arrival, our guest examined the interior of his room very closely. And indeed, our room IS the old bedroom of his grandmother, not “something like that”, but exactly her furniture, without any doubt. The proof: in the headboard of the large bed, there is a more or less hidden scratch, which he had carved as a child – staying in bed with mumps, and that meant: absolute bed rest, in exactly this bed. Carving precisely and minutely (a quite time-consuming task!), as one sometimes does as a child, when one is ill, and can not go outside, has some silly ideas in his or her head (being the right age for that) and is just a bit bored. So that’s the story behind this peculiar scratch that we did not really understand as a „sign of usage“ before. He remembered, and could tell us that after his grandmother died, parts of her furniture had been sold. We actually bought this bedroom furniture a few years ago from an antique dealer in Dusseldorf. Quite simply because we liked it as a completely preserved, entire set. With this particular guest and his story, we’ve come full circle (not just us, for him as well!). By the way, in May he will stay here again, with his wife. And of course, it has to be this room. We really like this anecdote.