The last place that Scott Landon ever thought hed end up was reality television.
Between his South Granville boutique, buying trips throughout North America, and collaborations with designers on hip spaces like Homer Street Café, Tap and Barrel, and Meat and Bread, the Vancouver-based antiques dealer has long had a full plate.
So when the opportunity arose for him to audition to join the quartet of buyers on CBCs new series Four Rooms, he did so reluctantly.
"I didn't want to water down my brand, and I really didn't want to water down the antique business in this country, period, because it needs a little bit of help," said Landon during a recent junket below CBC's downtown headquarters.
But the audition — in which the potential buyers were put through the paces of an episode — made him a believer. "It was strange to stand with the cameras staring at me, but once I got past that, it was about the negotiation, and the buying," he said.
In Four Rooms (the Canadian version of a popular UK series, which marries the subject matter of Antiques Roadshow with the studio format of Dragons' Den), Canadians with antiques to sell face a panel of renowned antiques buyers: Eddy Rogo of Montreal, Toronto's Derreck Martin and Jessica Lindsay Phillips, and Landon. The seller makes a presentation to the buyers, and then the buyers negotiate with the seller. Only one buyer emerges victorious.
Eight hour-long episodes were filmed in Toronto last August. From them, viewers will learn how value is determined on an object, witness actual transactions — "It's real money coming out of my pocket when I win an item," Landon says — and gain an understanding of the buying and selling that occurs in the antiques sphere, according to Landon.
Landon's favourite Four Rooms finds are indicative of the style for which he is quickly becoming known: Canadiana cool, ideally accompanied by a compelling story from our nation's past.
Case in point: flour sacks from the First World War. During the war, Canada sent thousands of bags of flour to Europeans suffering behind enemy lines. Each bag was made from linen and stamped with the words Free Gift Canada. Once the flour had been consumed, the recipients would often transform the bags into clothing — or as was the case in Landon's win — remarkable pieces of art.
"I bought [these three bags] in a heartbeat," he recalled. "It's not the most valuable thing I bought, but it's one of the most important stories from a time when the people who were involved aren't around any more."
He considers himself a caretaker of historical remnants. "I get to hold these things for a while, and move them to the next person who will hold them for a while, who will sell them to somebody else," he said. "The pieces survive."
Landon's own home is filled with such story-laden pieces, as is his Vancouver boutique and a 6,000-square-foot warehouse in Cloverdale. The warehouse is essential, given Landon's passion for buying up dozens of vintage doors, or hundreds of industrial light fixtures, or lots of old-school siding, and then waiting for the right project to present itself.
"I want people to know that stuff is available, that before you go buy this thing that was made in another country and you'll throw in the garbage in three years, think about the alternative. You may have to spend a little bit more, maybe less, maybe the same, but look what you got. Now create your own story."
Four Rooms premieres on CBC Television at 8pm on January 5.
