“Basically, we’re trying to cover the gamut of interior design,” says Jim Stenella Jr., proprietor of Stenella Antiques, who notes the store is expanding its offerings to include lighting as well as an increasing selection of home accessories. “We are looking to be a full-service place to shop for all of your interior design needs.”
One new arrival to the Stenella Antiques repertoire comes in the form of lighting. The store’s current collection of fixtures includes names such as Chapman Lamps, Wildwood Lamps, Maitland Smith, Waterford, Fine Art Lamps and Virginia Metalcrafters. To offer the utmost in couture décor, Stenella Antiques will even be working with a custom manufacturer who makes items especially to order just for Stenella Antiques customers.
In the arena of accessories, Stenella Antiques is offering a flourishing array of items, from rugs to new and antique oil paintings to high-quality decorative bronzes, from small accent pieces such as bookends and candlesticks to desktops, and from tabletops to large outdoor fountains.
Stenella Antiques is also now a vendor of items by Drexel Heritage, a prominent company that offers highly customizable items. Details such as upholstery on seating and custom finishes on tables allow customers the freedom and flexibility to create a piece entirely unique to their own home.
These offerings complement Stenella Antiques’ existing and vast collection of lines that include notable names such as Henkel Harris, Biggs, Colonial Williamsburg, Hancock & Moore, Kittinger, Baker, Councill, Hickory Chair, Karges, Saybolt Cleland, Kindel, Widdicomb, Winterthur and Ralph Lauren.
In addition to being known for such well-known brands, Stenella Antiques is gaining notoriety for its ever-growing upholstery services. Such services are particularly advantageous to customers looking to bring a traditional-style piece into their home, yet make it their own. Stenella Antiques offers not just a variety of fabrics but leathers as well, so that the company can offer a full makeover to anything from a sofa to a dining room set.
As Stenella notes, lighting and fabrics are two of the easiest design facets to change that enable homeowners to “still have a classic look but with a modern, contemporary feel.”
Much of what Stenella Antiques offers is newer but still traditional, yet Stenella notes that many of the store’s most popular items are reproductions of centuries-old pieces. So how does the consumer ensure these items from the past will continue to be fashionable in the future? Stenella’s answer: “These classic designs have been around for 200, 300 years, and that classic design is going to be around for the next 200, 300 years.”
Such pieces reflect Stenella Antiques’ overall drive to provide customers with enduring objects with which to furnish their homes.
“We’re not on the trendy end, with items that are ‘here today, gone tomorrow,’” he says. “Our [items] are timeless. They are heirloom pieces—pieces we hope people will pass down from generation to generation.”
In addition to its bevy of just-launched lighting and furnishing options will be a new showroom. The current location in Perkasie features nearly 30,000 square feet of items. While this may seem vast, Stenella notes there is still room to grow. Though plans are still in the works, Stenella will soon expand to a second location, this one in Montgomery County.
The new space, which is planned to be approximately 24,000 square feet, will offer more of a showroom-type setting wherein customers can see design vignettes and room settings so they can view firsthand how certain rooms can be put together. “There are not many places around anymore where you can view, inspect, walk through and get that showroom feel,” Stenella says. “We’re looking to basically bring back that showroom feel.”
This new location opened its doors this past summer.
As Stenella Antiques’ physical footprint grows, so does its presence in the digital world. Stenella Antiques rounds out its quest to provide customers with the “latest and greatest” by taking strides to stay at the forefront of technology, so that customers can shop with ease from anywhere in the country—or the world, for that matter.
Kasey Bradley, who is Stenella Antiques’ resident digital merchandising expert, explains that Stenella Antiques’ wares are offered now through a number of online sources, including Etsy, Amazon and the site which Bradley says has the largest digital selection, eBay. Stenella Antiques’ eBay website has more than 2,000 items listed, Bradley estimates, while Amazon more than 200 items listed and the Etsy site has more than 500 items listed. These sites, Bradley says, have proved invaluable in terms of allowing consumers to view the newest items Stenella Antiques has to offer.
“A lot of customers follow us because they know we get new things all the time,” Bradley says. “They know our inventory is constantly changing, so it makes it pretty convenient for our customers. … Being online definitely keeps [business] super fresh.”
In addition to constantly updating online shopping resources, Stenella Antiques has a sampling of its collection viewable on its own site, www.stenellaantiques.com. Stenella Antiques customers can also view and browse through the mobile App for Android and IOS users. Consumers can also visit the Stenella Antiques Facebook page, or sign up to be on the email list, to receive word about the newest items as they come into the store. Of course, Stenella notes, customers are always welcome to pop by the shop in Perkasie Tuesdays through Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., or Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., to see all that the store has to offer.
“We’re all about fresh merchandise here,” says Bradley. “Even though we sell older pieces, nothing stays around here long enough to become an antique.”
STENELLA ANTIQUES
104 S. 2nd Street
Perkasie, PA 18944
215-453-8490
www.stenellaantiques.com
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life Magazine, December, 2016.
