Given the recent attention given the sale of a reproduction lantern which hung for a time at the Gamble House, this 2005 article from the Los Angeles Times, detailing the sale of Randell Makinson’s personal collection of Greene & Greene ephermera, may be particular interesting to those who are not familiar with the story.
It was the auction the Craftsman community couldn’t stop talking about.
In December, Sotheby’s auction house put up a rare collection of
furnishings and accessories from historic homes designed by the
brothers Charles and Henry Greene, the architects who created the
venerable Gamble House in Pasadena, as well as other celebrated
examples of the early 20th century Craftsman style in Southern
California.The collection was offered by an anonymous donor whose identity did not
seem of particular importance until it became clear it was Randell
Makinson, the former curator and director of the Gamble House. The
auction, which appraisers say was the largest of its kind, netted
almost $3 million.