RECYCLING
Post + Beam sells variety of reclaimed artifacts
October 2, 2009
Bill Taylor
SPECIAL TO THE STAR
Where does a big carved-stone lion sleep?
Anywhere it wants until someone helps Doug Killaly move it out of the way. Not that that'll make his store on Dundas St. W. in the Junction any less cluttered. But it will be slightly easier to get in and out.
The lion is one of a pair that Killaly thinks were made in Romania some time ago, though their appearance is more Chinese than European.
Either way, they'll look better in a garden than those modern mass-produced creations you can buy that could be lions, dogs or a cross between the two.
Killaly is confident the right person will come along and fall in love with his lions.
"There are people who take one look in here, turn around and walk away," he says. "That's fine. This place isn't for everybody. My customers are the people who 'get it.' That makes them easy to deal with." He opened the store, Post + Beam Reclamation, four years ago, billing it as "Toronto's best source of reclaimed architectural material."
That could be anything from a tin ceiling panel to a curved cabinet made from old porch windows taken from a house in Howard Park.
"I didn't know what else to do with them so I had this made," says Killaly. "Of course, you'd need a curved wall to put it against."
In the market for three metres of art nouveau-style wrought-iron fence? It's in the window.
A European "carved double-entry" set of doors, dating back to the turn of the 19th century? Right here.
Early 20th century American cast-iron decorative light standards? A woman picks up a handsome old magnifying glass and asks the price.
Killaly ponders for a moment and says, "$15."
"One-five?" the woman says. "That's all?"
She pays and goes away rejoicing.
"It's nice to see people happy," Killaly says. "I like to keep my prices realistic. I'm not in this to get rich."
A fourth-generation Torontonian, he finds a lot of stuff locally, though he also "drags it here" from as far away as Argentina and Britain and makes regular trips to the Rust Belt states – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and New York.
Another woman comes in looking for a door knocker she'd seen on a previous visit. But it's gone.
"Oh, no," she cries. She may never find one like it.
Killaly, 43, calls himself "a mile wide and an inch deep. I've been a baker, a restaurateur and a porter at Waddington's auction house. That's where I started learning.
"I'd see terrific architectural pieces going up and no one bidding. So I started buying stuff and now people call me and say, 'I have this thing that's been sitting in my basement for 30 years that maybe you'd be interested in.'
"I'd be a rich man if I could charge a dollar to everyone who wants to tell me what their grandma threw away!"
Ironically, he and his wife, Megan Webster, who deals in antiquarian maps, don't have a house full of wonderful architectural features.
"We live in an apartment," he says. "Her rule has always been for every piece I bring in, I have to take a piece out. That helped get me started here."
It's a store where you could spend hours browsing and Killaly's fine with that. Who knows what you might find?
"The place is a mess," he admits cheerfully. "But people are (more) forgiving than in a clothing store. Part of the fun is poking around."
His favourite is a monster, from the 1730s – a 360-kilogram lead statue topped by a hand-etched bronze sundial by Thomas Wright, instrument-maker to King George II.
"Look," Killaly says. "Some drunken Englishman took shots at it with a musket. You can see where the balls struck it."
It's $29,000 – a bargain, he says, given that one like it sold in England for more than twice as much.
"I'd hate to see it go," he adds, sentimentally.
For more information, see pandb.ca.
Toronto Star