Auction from historic Oakwell estate nets nearly $400,000
VILLANOVA, Pa. (CBS) -- An auction of hundreds of pieces of local history from the Oakwell estate netted almost $400,000 Monday.
There was an auction for the items Monday at the estate.
Antique furniture, fine art, sculptures and items from the estate's wine cellar were all up for grabs.
There were busts of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (bidding starting at $8,000), Irish landscape paintings by John Traynor, fine Persian and Turkish rugs, a marble garden fountain, a Chinese terracotta warrior, Meissen porcelain sculptures and many more items.
Nearly 3,000 people signed up to bid in person or online.
Of the 659 lots up for sale, 511 sold, bringing in a total of $377,000, said George Jevremovic, founder and president of the Philadelphia-based auction house Material Culture.
The highest bids were $6,400. Those got the winners a Steinway piano and a pair of monumental carved marble garden urns.
For some, it was a chance to own a piece of history from our region.
"It's quite a historic estate going back to 1920, a lot of memories accumulated there over the years," Jevremovic said. "So in some sense, we're celebrating a century of life on the Main Line."
The auction also included three "vampire slayer kits" we talked about Monday, but the minimum $1,500 bids were not met.
The future of the Oakwell Estate house and gardens in Villanova is still being decided.
The Lower Merion School District took ownership of the property through eminent domain.
The school district is proposing to build new athletic fields, but local preservationists say they want the property to be used for historic reuse.