Summers Place Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s, have formally unveiled their new, purpose-built 5000 sq ft gallery.
Opening the doors on Saturday, October 20,
just before their autumn sale of garden statuary, the new building
will be known as the Morris Weller Gallery, named after Alistair
Morris, FRICS and Leslie Weller DL, FRICS - respectively former
managing director and chairman of Sotheby's Sussex - in recognition
of their contribution to establishing Summers Place as an auction
venue over the years.
The gallery nestles between the 100-year-old
yew hedges in the walled garden of the adjoining Victorian mansion,
Summers Place, formerly the home of Sotheby's Sussex saleroom. It
has been designed to blend into its historic surroundings.
With contemporary lighting and revolutionary
slate-veneered interior, the gallery provides state-of-the-art
facilities at a venue where perhaps the greatest challenge in times
gone by was finding a flat piece of flooring on which to place the
sizeable lots.
The gallery crowns an auction complex spread
over six acres, including the arboretum, sunken retail garden,
modern garden and formal garden designed and laid out by
award-winning landscape architect, Michael Balston in 1987.
All are used to display the wide range of
garden statuary, furniture, architectural pieces and Contemporary
sculpture in which the saleroom specialises.
From left to right: Alistair Morris,
Summers Place directors James Rylands and Rupert van der Werff,
Dendy Easton of the 'Antiques Roadshow' - who officially opened the
new gallery - and Leslie Weller celebrate the opening of the new
5000 sq ft Morris Weller Gallery at Summers Place.
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