Blixseth furniture to be auctioned in Atlanta

There’s no saying where towering gothic thrones made of carved black walnut were planned to go in “The Pinnacle,” the spec home at the Yellowstone Club promised to be the most expensive in the world when it hit the market.

The home was never built. And now the thrones are going to auction, along with more than 300 other antiques accumulated by Tim and Edra Blixseth to furnish the 53,000-square-foot home that was to have hit the market at $155 million.

Red Baron, an antique dealer in Atlanta, plans to sell the pieces in a live auction the second weekend of November. The total collection, Red Baron says, is worth $8 million or more.

“People buy this kind of furniture when they want you to know they’re rich,” said Bob Brown, president of Red Baron. “You can’t put 100 dollar bills on your wallpaper, so that’s what you do.”

Based on paperwork that came with the furniture, Brown said it appeared the Blixseths spent “a fortune” just traveling to acquire the exquisite furnishings.

“It looks to me like some of the best stuff there ever was,” said Brown, who has been in the antique business for 35 years. “A lot of stuff that was made for kings. In America, we can’t be king, so people want to buy things kings once owned.”

The prospects of “The Pinnacle” being built dimmed in March 2008 when Tim Blixseth sold the 160-acre lot it would have sat on. By then, the Blixseths were already in divorce proceedings and the club’s bankruptcy was looming.

The club did go under, and after a series of court hearings, was bought by Boston-based CrossHarbor Capital Partners.

With the club, CrossHarbor got the furniture, said Matt Kidd, a partner at the firm. But the new owners thought they would do better liquidating the collection than they would trying to find places to put it at the millionaires-only club.

“It doesn’t really fit into our business plan,” Kidd said. “It isn’t needed for what we’re planning for the club.”

Along with the throne, a gryphoned and garlanded bank clock, marble and mahogany mirrors and walnut and ebony cabinets are featured in Red Barron’s advertisements for the “finest and most fantastic furnishings from the world famous Yellowstone Club n the only private ski resort in the world.”

In all, 13 tractor-trailer loads of furniture are being shipped from Big Sky to Atlanta between now and the auction, Brown said.

The collection, which has been advertised in publications like the Wall Street Journal, has piqued interest, Brown said. A man from Britain called saying he wanted to make a bid on the entire collection. Brown said he took the call with a grain of salt.