styleNorth

192 Spadina Ave., Toronto
416.971.5054
Mon – Fri 9 am – 6 pm, Sat 12 – 4 pm

After 26 years in the office furniture business Barry Einhorn knows his chairs, desks and credenzas like you and I know our family members. That’s an Eames, this is a Mies, that one’s a Jacobsen. Vintage furniture nuts will be in seventh heaven at Barry’s Office Furniture, a no-frills warehouse piled high with superb, impossible-to-find vintage pieces (more below the jump).

Just be prepared to pay full freight: Barry knows what his stuff is worth and his motto is “You pay, I play.” The yellow leather waiting room sofa (above left) by recently deceased Canadian designer Steve Siwinski is $2,000; the Eames shell chair (above right) is $380 and get this–Barry’s got 22 of them! The caned, Mies MR chair by Knoll, below centre, is one of three available for $400 each.

Three thousand dollars for this vintage, leather Nienkamper sofa and chair set (above) may sound like a lot but the quality and condition are exemplary. A new set at Klaus would cost three times as much. The Apotex “fish chairs” (below left) are very reminiscent of the 1964 Tulip chair and come with an even bigger matching executive seat for $1,000 (for the set). Barry wants $5,000 for the Leif Jacobsen rosewood credenza, below right, but what a beauty!

And finally, the spectacular, giant-sized sputnik light fixture below has 150 stocks and is wired in two halves which allows them to be dimmed separately. It’s too large and too pricey ($2,500) for most residential applications but I can easily see it anchoring a restaurant or lobby design.

I stumbled upon Barry’s by accident but what a happy accident; this place is a gold mine!