Northshore Home magazine highlights the best in architectural design, new construction and renovations, interiors, and landscape design.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/1206063
74 WINTER 2020 O NE THING INSIDERS KNOW ABOUT THE venerable Andover antiques shop New England Gallery is that you enter through the back door off the alleyway, not the front. They also know that if you're a serious shopper for American furniture, decorative arts, or paintings, you should visit regularly, because things move in and out with the speed of a Boston minute (if not a New York one). The material is choice and always fresh to the marketplace. Robert A. "Bob" Blekicki and his wife, Burma, a certi- fied gemologist, began the business slightly more than 50 years ago in March 1969, renting space on the ground floor of what is known as the Aberdeen building, on the far end of North Main Street. They were both in their shop Robert and Burma Blekicki opened New England Gallery in 1969 . twenties at the time, and recalled recently that they paid their landlady, a Miss Remington, $75 a month in rent. In those days, parking was allowed on North Main Street, aka Route 28, so customers went in and out the front door, as did the merchandise. (It remained this way until the 1980s, when the state banned parking on Route 28.) They also recalled that it was at Burma's urg- ing that they looked into dealing in antiques in the first place, making their initial purchases at an auction at the Andover Historical Society (now known as the Andover Center for History & Culture). "We bought a couple of things there," Bob relates, "and one thing led to another, and it wasn't long before we were in business." They incorporated originally as New England Auc- tion & Appraisal, thinking they would have auctions, too. But before they ever got the chance to hold one, they quickly realized auctions weren't for them. Instead, they focused on purchasing, sales, and appraisal, estab- lishing a solid reputation as a dealer's dealer. "We were happy to sell to dealers," explains Bob, "because we were handling such large estates, soup to nuts." In 1976, a change of ownership took place for the red brick Aberdeen, which was built along with the rest of Shawsheen Village by William Madison Wood's