The Company, page 3
eighteenth century treasures and not to her surprise, the pieces were well received by designers here on the West Coast. It was common for European dealers to handle restoration with their own artisans, and our grandparents spent longer and longer periods of time in Europe while pieces were being restored and managing the individual shipment of pieces which once repaired were crated and shipped to the various ports of Le Havre, Bordeaux, Genoa and Lisbon.
     In 1958 they established a much-needed “base of operations” with our grandfather’s business partner, Clarence A. Slade, in the form of a fifteenth century villa Villa L’Acciaio,

“Villa of the Trees”, just forty- two kilometers outside of Florence in the Tuscan countryside.     More and more items were successfully added to the line and were regularly shipped to San Francisco. The whole family spent summers scouring the Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish countryside’s in search of unique treasures.
     By the late 1960’s and into the beginning of the 1970’s it became apparent to our grandparents that the supply of readily available antiques was diminishing. As they discovered one of a kind treasures, they took them to hand selected artisans in Italy, Spain