LONG BRANCH - Growing up in Oceanport with a father in the antique furniture business, Joe Gormley developed a love for and appreciation of antiques early on.

And today, as the second-generation owner of 50-year-old Mill House Antiques in Long Branch, Gormley relishes the hunt for vintage treasures as well as the opportunity to help homeowners incorporate unique, high-quality pieces of antique furniture — and a bit of history — into their décor.

“My father John started John Gormley Antiques in 1973, doing antique picking and selling out of his house in Middletown,” said Gormley, 33, a West Long Branch resident, of the shop’s genesis. “He moved the business to an old bowling alley on Broadway around 1980, bought another small location in Little Silver around 1990 that he called Mill House Antiques, and then merged the two locations into our current building in 2008 under the name Mill House Antiques.”

“As a kid, our family lived in an 1890s-era Victorian house that had a lot of antiques, so I was used to being around them,” Gormley said. “In my teens, I used to go to antique stores in New York City with my father, and I always worked with him at the store on the weekends. It was cool seeing the pieces that came in, like ornate wooden bookcases with bronze eagles on them and other things I’d never seen before.

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"I found it all neat and interesting and I really started appreciating antiques around that time,” he said. “The market for antiques in the 1980s and 1990s was strong and my father’s business was very successful.”

After high school, Gormley attended Brookdale Community College in the Lincroft section of Middletown, where he took business classes.

“I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go into the antiques business at the time,” he said, “but I continued working part-time for my father, moving furniture and doing whatever needed to be done at the shop, and realized that I really did like it. I worked for him for the next eight to 10 years, learning everything I could about the antiques business, and became a partner six to seven years ago,” said Gormley, noting that he and his father, who’s now semi-retired, serve as co-presidents of Mill House Antiques.

Dining tables are in, grandfather clocks are out

Today, in their two-story, 12,000-square-foot building, which was originally constructed in 1902 by refrigeration company H.W. Brown & Co. and later served as a location for Eatontown TV & Appliance, “we have some pieces from the 18th century, but mostly deal with French, English and American furniture from the late 19th and early 20th century,” Gormley said. “These include big case pieces such as bookcases, sideboards, hutches and breakfronts, though we also feature ‘decorative smalls’ like candelabras and clock sets.”

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Among the characteristics of these pieces by region, “French furniture was often made of walnut or kingwood and distinguished by marble tops or other inlays,” Gormley said. “English furniture of that period was Edwardian and featured a lot of rosewood, mahogany and other dark woods, while America was in its Victorian era and the pieces featured heavily carved figures and a renaissance revival rococo style.”

Gormley travels from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., to buy pieces, which he sources from estate sales, auctions and private sellers who contact the shop.

“Our pieces are all at least 100 years old, are made very well, and have stood the test of time,” Gormley said of antique dining room tables at their shop that sell from $2,500 to $6,000, sideboards ranging from $1,000 to $6,000, and much more. “We refurbish everything we sell as necessary to ensure that it’s in pristine condition.”

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“My father and I recently bought a François Linke four-sided curio cabinet from 1904 for $120,000; Linke introduced this piece at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and the last one that sold at auction in New York City went for $600,000,” he said. “We also had a 1906 inlaid Bechstein piano that we recently sold to a good customer for approximately $20,000.”

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According to Gormley, “our local customers are largely from New York and North Jersey as well as Monmouth County, but since we went online 12 to 13 years ago, many of our customers are in the southeast, Midwest and Texas, where traditional furniture like ours is still popular,” he said.

As for recent trends, “we're selling a lot of French pieces now and we’re also seeing a renewed demand for antique dining tables and sideboards, possibly because many current furniture companies experienced supply chain issues during the pandemic, which opened buyers up to the option of antiques,” Gormley said.

On the flip side, “antique breakfronts and cabinets for storing dishes aren’t currently as popular because people aren’t entertaining as much as they did in the past, and grandfather clocks are a tough sell, maybe because they’re large pieces with an old look that remind people of their grandparents' house.” On a positive note, however, “we’re seeing more decorators coming back and mixing traditional pieces with new pieces in their home designs.”

Among challenges, “because we’re selling online with such big pieces, shipping and logistics issues add cost and time to the process, but it’s important to pack things up the right way for our customers,” Gormley said.

Internet competition adds another layer of difficulty. “There are a lot more sellers online who are selling a lot of the same items and undercutting prices,” he said. “Buyers have to be careful and do the best they can to investigate these items for condition and color. When we sell items online, for example, we show our store, how we refurbish things, and send customers videos of the piece to ensure that they’re well informed and will be happy with what they’re getting.”

'Finding something really cool'

Run by himself, two longtime associates who provide buying and refinishing support, and his father, who remains on the hunt for antiques even in his retirement, Gormley said that Mill House Antiques is an historian’s playground.

“I love to know where things come from and their unique backstory,” he said. “We’ll occasionally find a newspaper from the 1920s or an old letter as we’re cleaning out pieces and we’ll keep them. If it’s really cool, like an old deed, we might frame it and hang it.”

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Looking ahead, “we’ll be getting a lot more inventory in the coming weeks and will also begin dabbling in mid-century modern pieces, which have become extremely popular in major metro areas like ours,” Gormley said. “We’ve started bringing in furniture from the 1960s and 1970s that features a mixture of wood, brass and other metals, and geometric patterns. Though furniture of that time period was simpler in design than more traditional pieces, we appreciate its vintage aesthetic.”

Among his favorite parts of the job, “I love the buying aspect — going to people’s houses or attics and finding something really cool,” Gormley said. “I also love the distinctiveness and quality of these pieces and the fact that they’re not something you’ll see everywhere. They’re well-built items that have been appreciated over the years and can now be a unique piece for someone else to love and treasure.”

Mill House Antiques

Location: 361 Broadway, Long Branch

Phone: 732-571-4849

Owners: John and Joe Gormley

Founded: 1973

Website: www.millhouseantiques.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Mill House Antiques in Long Branch sells astounding antique furniture