Conrad Cultraro is a born collector. As a nine-year old he began stockpiling coins, stamps, baseball cards, and comic books. Over the course of a 35-year career in architecture and interior design his interests expanded to include furniture, fixtures, and decorative and fine art. Cultaro and his wife Doris, of DC Stained Glass in Germantown, spent years going to auctions, estate sales, and galleries. On vacation, they would comb through antique and warehouse districts “on hands and knees, with flashlights and gloves,” searching for buried treasure. “That’s how we had our fun,” he says.
Cultraro’s gallery in Hudson, A Collector’s Eye, is the culmination of a lifetime of discerning accumulation. “After filling and selling two houses, I don’t have room any more, so I have to find new homes,” he says. At his gallery, Cultraro has remedied many of the frustrations he encountered in his own antique-hunting experience. Organized by design era, the displays are clear and uncluttered; the shop is well-lit; everything is priced clearly; and nothing smells musty. The shop specializes in Modernist era collectibles (1870–1960). The vast inventory spans furniture, rugs, lighting, coins, militaria, statuary, costume and estate jewelry, clothing, and countless other treasures for the curious collector.
This article appears in January 2018.
