"But it wasn't moving when I packed it, Officer."
Dave Allen to US Customs Official, upon arrival
at San Francisco Int’l Airport, October 2008
Newsroom
Our Story
(click to enlarge images)
February, 1997
Shoulders squared, Dave Allen walks out of a perfectly good Silicon Valley managerial career exchanging his pathetically cheerful neckties for Patagonia stand-up shorts.
Cashing out his sad little 401K, he travels to Charleston, SC, renting a 24-foot Penske box truck, and proceeds to fill it with architectural antiques. Returning to his Menlo Park home 3,400 miles later, he holds his first private yard sale. More than thirty cross-country truck drives will follow.
Summer. On the road again, Dave fashions first Yard Sale Postcard at a Kinko’s in Buffalo, NY. Hand-addressing them from his dingy motel room, Dave races home, just ahead of the sale date and a flurry of floating checks.
1998
Sleuthing from coast to coast, Dave cultivates an extensive network of sources. Buoyed by increasing sales, he unleashes on his followers a series of increasingly bizarre postcards and the quest for a showroom begins.
2000
Dave lays claim to a cavernous grain warehouse in San Jose and begins “moving a few things around..."
2001
The paint is barely dry when the showroom is named Best Independent Retail Store Design in the US by Visual Merchandising and Store Design magazine. Dave haggles in Europe and Turkey and returns with something he didn’t bargain for — a rapidly evolving design aesthetic.
2003
An intriguing invitation culminates in the move to a new showroom at Cornerstone Gardens in Sonoma. Undeterred by a tanking dollar, Dave opens his wallet in Italy, Belgium and Holland.
2004
Christmas: Dave creates the controversial yet deeply moving “300 Snowmen” installation, and a Sonoma tradition is born. In the showroom, modern design and highly ornamented architecturals commingle. Uma chooses Artefact as her new home.
2005-2006
Dave dives into European design and begins tracking decorative objects to their true source of manufacture in Asia. He ventures into India and China. Back home, he spends the year reading about the environmental degradation of the planet. He despises packaging waste, and for a time refuses to provide showroom customers with bags or wrappings of any sort. This strategy proves unpopular, and is soon abandoned.
2007
Attending Maison et Objet in Paris, Dave discovers organic tropical vine-forms presented as art. He is transfixed. In a fit of counter-intuitive environmentalism, he battles the urge to drop everything and head to the jungle with an ax.
2008
Dave drops everything and heads to the jungle with an ax. He traipses across Borneo, Java, Bali and parts of Malaysia and the Philippines filling his coffers with wondrous new objects. He is intrigued by the economy of village-level production.
2009
Dave develops relationships and products with remote Indonesian villages. Containers smelling of the jungle arrive in Sonoma. An unlikely series of events culminates in a Cirque du Soleil benefit performance in big top behind the showroom. Dave manages to insinuate himself into the performance, and ticks a big one off the bucket list.
2010
Asia continues to hold Dave’s attention. Innovative Las Vegas restaurant project with Roger Thomas sends him deep into the jungle. Flashy new website suffers from neglect. Axel the bulldog joins the team and begins rigorous training toward official mascot certification.
2011 - 2013
Too many buddhas in the showroom convince Dave to revisit his Rust Belt roots. He renews old contacts and salvages on the East Coast. Dave’s second public art installation “Flotsam” debuts at Fort Mason to decidedly mixed reviews.
2014
Having said no to any and all "interior design" invitations over the years (believing that even the smallest remodel would be riddled with unacceptable compromises), Dave says yes to a comically large commercial design project, and his trial by fire begins as the amazing 1440 Multiversity begins construction in Scotts Valley, with Dave in charge of all 150,000 square feet of interiors.
2015
Ownership change at Cornerstone Gardens and a hefty dose of new investment take the showroom environs to an exciting new level. Hard lessons are learned in Scott's Valley; Dave soon suspects that commercial construction in California is a fool's errand. Nonetheless, progress on the massive project is made.
2016
Sunset Magazine moves their show gardens and test kitchens to Cornerstone Gardens and Artefact begins to work with their dynamic team. Dave's secret plan is to leverage his usefulness to the editorial team in such a way as to see Axel appear on the cover of the magazine in the coming year.
2017
Sunset Magazine is sold again, this time to some soulless private equity group, and the editorial team is decimated. Axel remains in relative obscurity. Having evolved into a life-changing experience thanks to a wonderful team, 1440 Multiversity is completed to rave reviews.
2018
Lucia, dynamo of a sales manager, keeps things humming at the showroom, freeing Dave to pursue his next pet project, and the ArtefactCurator Products launch at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York.
2019
Controversial new landlords sweep in and purchase Cornerstone and are immediately boycotted by “woke” locals. Dave has had enough and makes plans to excercise his escape clause.
2020
Dave packs up his 200 remaining snowmen, and along with several hundred tons of accumulated goods, he, Lucia, Martin and Ainsley head off down the road, masks firmly in place. Axel the Bulldog, famous for his daily bucket show, passes peacefully to the great beyond.
2021
On the hunt for a Final Resting Place for the showroom, the team take advantage of a temporary opportunity. A plot of land with a small showroom has become available just down the road, and the team sublets while the landlord battles for permission to open the location as a marijuana dispensary. A few months turns into a year plus, and the temporary location starts to feel like home.
2022
An unexpected opportunity gives the team one final chance to solve the retail riddle. Moving into Sonoma proper, Artefact Design & Salvage arises like a phoenix in a 7000 square foot showroom at the corner of Broadway and Napa Road. It is a magical location, mentioned in Salman Rushdie’s book, Quixote, as a portal to another world. Even better, Friedman’s Hardware is right next door.
2023
After an extensive talent search, a new mascot is recruited, and Satchel the Olde English Bulldog, joins the team.