Vancouver Sun ePaper

Opening the door to one of the city's unusual collections — and collectors

JOHN MACKIE

To most people, a doorknob is a doorknob. Not to Robert McNutt. To him, a doorknob can be a work of art, a symbol of a great building, even a reflection of great wealth.

McNutt has a couple of doorknobs from the Vanderbilts, one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in America's gilded age in the late 1800s.

Cornelius Vanderbilt built the biggest house in the history of New York at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 57th Street in Manhattan in 1883. It was demolished and replaced by the Bengdorf Goodman department store in 1926.

McNutt has a doorknob with the CV monogram, which he believes is from the mansion. He also has a doorknob with the monogram AV for Cornelius's wife, Alice Vanderbilt, which is supposed to be from the stables for the mansion.

His latest score is a doorknob from the White House. Jokingly asked who stole it, he frowned.

“No, no, no, it doesn't go that way,” said McNutt, 54, who works in building maintenance in Vancouver. “In 1950 they gutted the White House, just leaving the bare shell. Some stuff were saved, some stuff was scrapped. But apparently you could write to the government and they would send you items as souvenirs. You paid a small amount of money and could get a souvenir of the White House.”

Twenty years ago, he saw one of the White House doorknobs, which don't actually say White House on them — they have a gothic design.

McNutt seems to have a photographic memory for doorknobs and antiques, and can roll off dates and names for most every piece he owns. So when he spotted two of the White House doorknobs, he snapped them up “for $223.61 U.S.”

This seems cheap, and is.

“They weren't advertised as White House, because the person didn't know (what they were),” he said.

Believe it or not, he has doorknobs and door hardware for 450 buildings, which he buys in all sorts of places — online, at garage sales, at junk or antique stores.

“I am the only collector of doorknobs in Vancouver,” he said with a laugh.

Some of his doorknobs come with the plate they were mounted on.

“This lockset with the `W' on it is from The Sun Tower on Pender Street (at Beatty Street),” he relates. “It was built as the World Building. It was for sale in New Westminster, $125.”

He picks up a doorknob with a fleur-de-lis design, and “Hotel Traian, Iasi” written around it.

“Hotel Traian in Iasi, Romania, 1883,” he said. “The architect of that hotel was Gustave Eiffel of the Eiffel Tower, eBay, $43.”

He doesn't just have a passion for doorknobs. He spent decades restoring antique lighting, and has about 125 ceiling fixtures, 250 sconces and 30 table lamps. He even has 63 vintage lighting catalogues, which is how he identifies stuff. He also has about 30 toilets, many of them old-school, twopiece jobs where the reservoir is separate from the biffy and hangs above it.

“I also have a nice collection of showers, consisting of rib-cage showers, the type of showers that spray water at you from every angle, like a car wash,” he relates.

One of the rib-cage showers is set up in his bathroom, atop a gigantic 700-pound bathtub that took movers four hours to get up the stairs.

McNutt lives in an apartment block in Mount Pleasant that was built in 1913, so he tries to keep everything in the apartment from 1913 or earlier.

He doesn't have a refrigerator, for example, he has an old-fashioned icebox.

The apartment is crammed with antique treasures and architectural salvage, such as a “chocolate-coloured buffalo leather tufted living room set from the first mayor of Kelowna, Mr. Raymer.”

We would be amiss not to mention his enormous collection (275 pieces) of 19th century esthetic-movement ceramics, many from the Longwy company in France.

“The esthetic movement was when everything Chinese and Japanese was in vogue,” he states. “It was a very beautiful time. My radiators are esthetic movement, (featuring) herons.”

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2023-02-02T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-02T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://vancouversun.pressreader.com/article/281543705070597

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