Leisurely browsing estate sales on the North Shore usually makes for a Saturday well spent. But this weekend, a one-of-a-kind estate sale in Gloucester promises to draw crowds.
On Saturday, Dec. 7, from 9am–2pm, you’ll be able to peruse hundreds of items for sale at the home of restaurateur Barbara Lynch. The estate sale comes after news about the impending closure of all of Lynch’s restaurants, as well as a lawsuit from the City of Boston regarding unpaid property taxes, the Boston Globe reported.
Highlights of the sale include chef staples like cookbooks, aprons, cookware and chef coats. We even spot a vintage Tom & Jerry set, including a punch bowl and mugs familiar to anybody who ever visited No. 9 Park while it was snowing. There’s also decor, mid-century modern furniture, designer clothes, vintage books, bicycles, patio furniture, sculptures, old maps and more.
But the main draw is likely Lynch’s vast art collection: She owned lithographs by Matisse, a singular piece called Dune Shack by artist Clint Baclawski, plein air paintings of the North Shore by Hilary Baldwin, as well as works by Piet Roovers, Harry Lawrence Gage, and Cape Ann painter Charles Movalli.
Lynch’s collection also contains works she completed herself; in addition to her life as a chef and restaurateur, she was a prolific painter, eventually becoming an artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Among her paintings for sale is one of eggplant salad, which was one of her first dishes at No. 9 Park. (The Beacon Hill mainstay closes after service on December 31, Eater Boston first reported.)
All of the artwork in the home will be listed at a variety of price points, with smaller ones asking less than $100, according to Best Rate Cleanouts & Estate Sales, the operator of the sale.
If you’re new to estate sales, or even if you’re a seasoned pro, you should get to this one early to put your name on the sign-up sheet. At 7am, the folks from Best Rate will give out numbers to people in the order they appear on the sign-up sheet. When the sale starts at 9am, numbers will be called chronologically. You simply enter when your number is called and start shopping.
You can find more details about the sale and can see the entire catalog of 438 images at estatesales.net.