Time Capsule

It all started with a Heywood Wakefield dining set Gary Klun spied at an antiques store. His partner, Jason Engelman, supported Klun’s enthusiasm, but followed it up with “but if we buy it, you know we’ll have to change everything in the whole house.” That was ten years ago when the couple was living in a top-to-bottom Art Deco home in Uptown.

Fast forward to their circa 1949 midcentury-modern Golden Valley rambler—which, by the way, was home to GV’s mayor in the ’50s. Though Engelman calls the place “very Leave It to Beaver,” it’s much hipper than the Cleavers ever could be. The home is so authentic (even their daily dishes and flatware are vintage), it could double as a movie set. From the sun porch filled with vintage rattan to the tricked-out basement with the prerequisite cocktail bar—at every turn you can see how it used to be in the good ol’ days.

The funny thing is, Engelman, who manages Art of Optiks in Wayzata, and Klun, who works for Ameriprise Retirement Services, both make their living in very au courant industries. So do they plan to live in this retro era forever? “You never know,” Engelman says. “We could fall for a 1970s dining set.”

The Object that Got Away  
Not much, but it still “kills” Klun that he passed on a Philco Predicta “umbilical cord” TV he saw in a shop in Illinois. “We are always in search for all things retro and have a large storage space filled to the rafters to prove it,” says Engelman.

Still Looking For . . .  
Besides Heywood Wakefield furniture, Klun and Engelman collect Sasha Brastoff pottery, Marc Bellaire pottery, Red Wing circa 1950, and works by French painter and printmaker Charles Cobelle, who was a contemporary of Chagall.

TV Dinners  
“We take our authenticity very seriously, including viewing DVDs of classic television shows and films on one of our several vintage televisions,” says Klun. “It’s the equivalent of a jazz hound listening to Miles Davis on vinyl.” But we did have to ask, and “yes” they do have a modern TV in the house for more mainstream viewing.