The Avid Antiquer: Provenance Antiques & Design

Most antique stores are hard to describe. This one is not. In fact, Provenance Antiques & Design can be described in just one word – exquisite.

Yes, there are hundreds of antique stores out there, especially here in Huntington. However, Provenance Antiques & Design is a whole different shopping experience. Instead of visiting a store, it feels as if you have stepped into one of the finest art galleries in the world.

"We carry museum quality pieces," said Peter Bisgeier, who has owned the store for 15 years, nine at the current location on New York Avenue. "Every piece is exceptional, one of a kind and the very best quality. We do not carry any reproductions."

The store features medium- to high-end furniture, mainly pieces from the 19th and early 20th centuries including armoires, dining room sets and bedroom furniture. It also carries all types of tables including end, coffee, sofa and bedside as well as lamps, desks, rugs, window treatments and a vast array of fabrics to reupholster anything in the showroom or anything a customer brings in. All restorations are done in house, and nothing is overlooked, according to co-owner Romeo Assaf, who came aboard a few years ago but brings over 20 years experience to Provenance's customers.

"We take the extra time to do it right," Assaf said. "If we are reupholstering a chair, we take it down to the bare wood and do it from scratch. We do it once and we do it right so it will last for 40 or 50 years. It may cost more, but our customers are paying for quality pieces and that is exactly what they are getting."

The mere size of the showroom – 13,000 square feet – in a town like Huntington is unusual enough, as stores of this size are normally found in places like Manhattan or Paris. But the set up of the store is the other thing that makes it so special.

"Most antique stores have things piled on top of each other. We don't," Assaf said. "We set up vignettes that fit perfectly together so customers can picture how perfectly it all goes together. That gives them an idea of how well it will fit in their own home."

Even if customers don't know how something will work in their homes, they have the owners to rely on. "We walk them through all of it." Assaf said. "We bend over backwards, more than any other business, even other antique stores, to assist our customers. And we stand behind everything we sell."

So much so that the owners actually gave a customer a full refund through a store credit for a mirror he bought six months earlier when the customer discovered a flaw in it. "Once he discovered the flaw, we went to his home to see what it was," Bisgeier said. "When we saw it was a legitimate flaw, we took back the mirror and gave him full credit towards two new pieces."