THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 8, 1994 TAG: 9409080478
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICK K. LACKEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
When Navy Lt. Pat Heye and his wife, Brigette, missed buying the antique bedroom suite of her dreams by 20 minutes, they knew whom to blame.
Him.
She bawled. He felt bad.
This was last May at MGR Exports, a huge antique warehouse in the English village of Bruton.
For a month, Brigette, 28, had been visiting a Louis XV-style bedroom suite a few times each week. Her neighbors in England visited and praised it, too.
Recently appraised at $25,000, the bed, 8-foot-tall armoire, dresser and two end tables were priced much lower at MGR Exports.
The table and dresser tops are inch-thick black marble; all the wood is thick burl walnut. The head- and baseboards billow out as gracefully as sails, and the dark wood is inlaid with lighter wood in intricate scrolls. The appraiser dated the suite circa 1875. In such historic luxury, an insomniac would plunge into deep, peaceful sleep.
Pat, 31, an exchange pilot with the Royal Navy's flying Sea Harriers, finally agreed in May to buy the suite. The next morning, Brigette told the warehouse owners that she and Pat would be in that afternoon to make the deal.
The warehouse owners, by now used to her frequent visits, said they would hold it only till 5:30 p.m.
Then along came Lawrence Hollingsworth, co-owner of, and buyer for, Hollingsworth Antiques at 819 Granby St. He buys antiques in England four times a year and wanted the suite.
He was told he could have it if the couple failed to buy it before 5:30 p.m.
Pat was held up at work, and he and Brigette arrived late. The suite was gone. Hollingsworth, a regular customer who buys hundreds of items a year from MGR, had packed it for shipment.
When Brigette saw the empty space where the suite had stood, she was crestfallen.
She asked warehouse co-owner Sue Read where the suite was headed. It went to Norfolk, Read said.
Pat and Brigette were from Virginia Beach.
``It was ironic,'' Pat said, ``to miss the suite by 20 minutes and hear it was going back to our home.''
He had been stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station, flying A-6 Intruders. They owned and were renting out a Virginia Beach house.
Back in Norfolk, Edna Hollingsworth, Lawrence's mother and the other co-owner of the antique store, heard the story of the young couple's loss.
``When my son came home and told me about it,'' she recalled, ``I said, `That really makes me sad.' ''
She said she put off selling the suite and tried to learn how to reach the young couple who loved it. But MGA knew Brigette only as a woman who came and admired the suite. They didn't know her name or how to get in touch with her. And Brigette never returned to the warehouse.
A Washington, D.C., dealer told Edna he could sell the suite there for $30,000 or more, she said, but she held onto it.
Then the Sunday before last, a handsome young man entered Hollingsworth Antiques, gazed fondly at the suite and said he'd almost bought it once.
``For him,'' Edna said, ``I marked his suite up 10 percent over what we bought it for. That's nothing for a suite like this, but my heart told me to let the couple have it. We could have sold it time and time again.''
The price, she said, was ``much, much under the appraised value.''
Pat had flown to Norfolk for the annual ball of A-6 Intruder pilots. He hadn't told Brigette that he planned to look for the suite. If he had, she could have told him that Hollingsworth Antiques had bought it.
As it turned out, the first dealer he talked to said to try Hollingsworth.
Because Pat bought the suite outside England, he escaped the nation's 17 1/2 percent value added tax. All in all, he said, counting shipping costs to England, he paid about 10 percent more for the suite than he would have if he had dragged his feet less.
The suite was packed Wednesday for shipment to England. Billy Wilson of Pak Mail said he has been packing antiques for five years. ``This,'' he said, ``is the nicest furniture we have ever dealt with.''
The suite is supposed to arrive in England within two weeks.
Needless to say, Pat is OK by Brigette.
``I think it's kind of a sweet story,'' she said. ``Don't you?'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by LAWRENCE JACKSON, Staff
Appraised at $25,000, the Louis XV-style suite - circa 1875 - first
drew the eye of Brigette Heye in the English village of Bruton.
by CNB