Goldon House Gallery
It’s almost a reflex. You step through the door at the Goldon House Gallery on Bay Street in Beaufort and your jaw just drops. It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before – an aweinspiring collection of authentic Chinese antique furniture – everything from tables and chairs to rice bowls and a baby’s bath bucket, and so much more. It’s everything you can imagine and beyond.
Look around a bit more and you see original artwork by the gallery’s owner, Vincent Golshani. Golshani is a master with color and form. His paintings sell for many thousands of dollars and they are the most popular items in the gallery.
The Chinese antiques come mainly from the Three Gorges Dam area on the Yangtze River which flooded in 1954 and again in 1998. Millions of people were evacuated leaving behind a treasure trove of antiques. Golshani was one of only 37 dealers who were able to go into temples and homes and buy this furniture. These genuine artifacts are between 100 and 300 years old. The exact age or century of each piece is not always known but the gallery guarantees that any antique purchased there is at least a century old.
Your charming host greets you with a warm welcome. Her name is Morgan Starling. She is the general manager of this newly opened Beaufort location, dovetailing with the original Savannah gallery run by Golshani himself.
Golshani and Starling have known each other for about two years. “We said we were always going to open a gallery together and that I would be the general manager,” said Starling. “We would laugh about it. In December we finally made a commitment and here we are.”
Both Golshani and Starling have always loved Beaufort. “There’s nothing like this in the area,” said Starling. “We thought it would bring so much ‘edge’ to the street. We have a lot of customers around here.”
Starling said she doesn’t think customers really know what they’re walking into. “They just walk in and go ‘wow.’” Strangely enough, the customers coming through the door are almost all tourists visiting Beaufort. “We don’t do a lot with locals,” said Starling. She said that about 90 – 95 percent of her business is tourists. “We ship all over the country.” The same is true of the Savannah gallery.
Golshani’s paintings are all originals. He paints the first of a particular series and incorporates his trademark “face” image. He then makes seven copies of the original work but they do not have the face integrated into it, just a signature. Nevertheless, each copy is actually an original because he paints all the copies himself, so no copy is exactly the same as another. All art sold in the Goldon House Gallery is Vincent Golshani’s work. The art is the most popular of all the items in the gallery.
The Savannah location has a huge warehouse, complete with its own manager, and sends the pieces to the Beaufort gallery as they get them. Everything has been cleaned up but nothing has been refurbished. “If, for example, an item comes in missing a handle, we will replace that but other than that, everything is in the original state as Vincent has found it,” said Starling. Nothing has actually been in the flood itself. These items came out of their places before the water could get to them.
Starling’s interest in the gallery business stems, at least in part, from her own sales background. She was in dental sales for a year-and-a-half before coming to Goldon House. “I have a sales background, and I felt like in dental sales it was all about the numbers and meeting quotas,” she said. “I feel like we have something interesting here to sell to people. People leave here smiling; some leave here crying because they’re so happy with their piece of art or furniture.” Starling said her real motivation is that she likes to make people feel good and give them what they want. “It brings me joy to see people happy,” she said. “When they walk out of our door they’re happy.”
The Beaufort Gallery opened this past June 22. “It’s a place that I come to that I don’t consider a job,” said Starling. “It is a job but it’s a happy place for me. I get to meet people from so many walks of life and hear their stories. It’s very interesting.”
The prices on the antiques are incredibly reasonable. What you might pay for a similar modern piece will buy a comparable item in the gallery, but you have an antique, well made, in excellent condition, with 100 – 300 years of provenance. “We get that a lot from our customers that we’re on the low end of pricing. We’re happy to be able to make the customer happy.”
Interspersed throughout the Chinese collection are African artifacts, such as tribal masks and ceremonial carvings of animals, all authentic.
Golshani goes to China several times per year to buy his stock. “We are expecting a container in August that will bring between 15,000 and 17,000 pieces,” said Starling. “I think I get first pick since this is the new gallery.” Starling said she plans to select more pieces with color to them to lend some additional brightness and contrast to the new gallery.
As for the future, Starling says the plan is to expand the operation up and down the southeastern coast. “We just want to see it boom and then branch out to Charleston and Jacksonville and just keep opening galleries.
” The jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring experience awaits anyone who comes through the door at Goldon House Gallery. It’s almost like a trip to a small museum but the fascinating displays are for sale at reasonable prices. It’s a chance to own a genuine piece of world history or an amazing original painting that is a product of Golshani’s greatness.
