Streisand Auction Fetches $3M

A pair of cabinets belonging to Barbra Streisand sold for $142,500 to a museum devoted to the American designer Gustav Stickley, the leading proponent of the Arts and Crafts style.

The cabinets were among Streisand possessions sold at an auction that brought in $3 million Monday. A collection of Streisand's memorabilia, including a vintage pink chiffon evening gown and a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, will be sold at Christie's on Thursday.

The oak corner cabinets were of particular interest to the nonprofit Craftsman Farms Foundation, which runs the Parsippany, N.J., museum that once was Stickley's home. They were made specifically for his dining room.

"We are tickled to have the cabinets back," said Tommy McPherson, executive director of the foundation, which has been trying to return the cabinets to the house for 10 years.

The foundation made appeals to Streisand, asking her either to donate the cabinets or arrange a private sale. Streisand's publicist, Dick Guttman, denied that the 57-year-old entertainer or her representatives had ever been contacted about the cabinets.

One cabinet sold Monday for $68,500 and the other for $74,000 at Christie's auction house.

Stickley, whose work is known as Mission furniture, built the log house at Craftsman Farm in 1911 and lived there until 1917. It is a National Historic Landmark.

The cabinets had been in Streisand's Holmby Hills, Calif., home, which she sold this year. She has two other homes.

At the auction Monday, a 1902 Stickley sideboard, originally made for the furniture maker's home in Syracuse and purchased by Streisand in 1988 for $362,000, sold for $540,000 to an anonymous telephone bidder. The winning bid set a record for a piece of furniture from the Arts and Crafts movement.

The prices include the auction house's commission of 15 percent up to $50,000 and 10 percent on the rest.