THE SHINY BLACK DOOR
JEWELRY
ART
OBJECTS of DESIRE
The Shiny Black Door is a curiosity cabinet that you can step into and explore, an experiential boutique in Northampton's iconic Thornes Marketplace. From postcards to Picassos; vintage point-and-shoot camera bargains to rare Chihuly glass sculptures, we have a diverse inventory of entertaining, unusual, entrancing objects of desire.
Owners Augusten Burroughs, Shari Sirkin and Christopher Schelling showcase an ever-changing array of rare, one-of-a-kind, eccentric and gorgeous items—at all price points—for home and body. Body? That would be Augusten's territory. A lifetime collector of jewelry and an IGS-Certified Professional Gemologist, his Shiny Black Door collection includes gorgeous ruby rings, pearl necklaces and an absurdly endless selection of jade bracelets (Augusten's favorite gemstone and one of the most fascinating gems in the world). There is a welcome abundance of fine jewelry: luxurious antique, vintage and estate pieces. But you'll also find affordable treasures alongside unique, handmade contemporary items and fun, stylish costume jewelry.
A meticulously curated gallery of paintings and mixed media leans heavily into Mid-Century Modern, from iconic to outsider artists, from high art to string art, but it is also studded with antique portraits and pieces unavailable anywhere else. Looking for a painting of a little girl who looks like Mia Farrow but needs dental work? We've got you covered. How about an original Peter Max oil painting? Or a gorgeous "award-winning" portrait of twins, one of whom has daggers in her eyes and hates being painted? Of course they're here. (For now.) We've also got a wide range of sculptures and ceramics from across the globe.
Tucked in with modern and custom furnishings throughout the store are distinctive decorative accessories and uncommonly beautiful objets. You would never know that a carved wild boar skull could be as intricate as lace, or that a life-size antique wooden swan would be more elegant than the real animal. The vintage over-the-top hand-carved Chinese dragon telephone is an eye-popper, as are the handmade Italian ceramic platters and the enormous, sturdy Hansa stuffed tiger.
Our inventory will make you laugh ("Is that a bronze chimpanzee???") and cry ("$450,000 for a necklace, are these people nuts???"). But it will save you a trip to Boston, New York, and several European cities. We've done the shopping for you.
In addition to being an immersive treasure box of a physical store, the Shiny Black Door is an interior design firm, known for creating original, expressive spaces that have been featured in magazines and newspapers around the world. Augusten and Shari can fashion an entire environment from the ground up or stop by your home for an afternoon and give you some suggestions about working with what you have.
The Shiny Black Door's luxurious showcase of unique jewelry, art and objects of desire is the store Northampton has needed—and deserved—for decades. It's finally arrived. And it's the creation of one of Northampton's most infamous creations, the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs.
1.5 hours from Boston, 1 hour from Great Barrington, 3 hours from Manhattan.
It's not the shop for everyone.
It's the shop for everyone else.
Meet the Owners
Augusten Burroughs & Shari Sirkin share a passion for design and collecting.Together, they created The Shiny Black Door to share their treasures with those who appreciate them. Christopher Schelling is a top literary agent and the husband of Augusten Burroughs. He works mostly behind the scenes.
Interior Design Projects
In addition to offering fabulous treasures for the home and body, Augusten and Shari are both professional interior designers with complimentary tastes and skill sets. They embrace projects large and small -from helping your living room look more cohesive, creating a magical nursery, even carving out space you didn't realize you had for a home office- to designing and implementing an entire interior from scratch. Below are several of our residential and commercial interior design projects, as well as a brief showcase of custom furnishings we have designed.
Wall St. Manhattan Apartment
This sumptuous, opulent Manhattan apartment features 18 foot ceilings which we emphasized with built-in mirror-backed bookshelves trimmed in brass, huge mirrors and endless purple velvet sofas. The dinning room is the epitome of glamour, with a custom mink-trimmed chandelier and mink slipcovered chairs. In the library we find an 18th century hutch, reinvented in riveted steel, muted tones, with an emphasis on the abundant natural light. We retained the footprint of the original galley-style kitchen instead of expanding it into the expected restaurant-sized production. And instead of exotic hardwood, we used plywood for all the cabinetry, polished concrete for the floors, and 100% recycled plastic for the countertops. The bedroom continues the client's favorite color theme with a bed dressed in purple velvet; an 18th Century French landscape as headboard. We created a white mohair sofa and suspended it from chains in front of the window, facing away from the view.
Chicago Ad Agency
To reinvigorate and inspire a new generation, we designed the complete renovation of a venerable, iconic Chicago advertising agency known for its green giants and talking hands. We stripped out the wood paneling to create client presentation room that wows from two directions: panoramic views of the Windy City skyline on one side, a wall of blue neon scribbles, accent lighting and a showcase of electric guitars on the other. The chrome table is paired with coordinating chrome and vegan leather chairs. Ribbons of soft, warm neon light hang inches below the platinum-leaf ceiling. The creative department was consolidated from six floors to two: the top floor features NYC brick walls and exposed HVAC pipes; a steampunk vibe with plenty of spaces to work. Downstairs, it's all play -with vintage pinball machines, pingpong tables, and a lap pool. For the commercial screening room, we designed plush armchairs covered in gold crushed velvet, platinum velvet carpeting and velvet walls and curtains and a brass ceiling studded with rock crystal ceiling fixtures.
A Rural Luxury Wellness Center
To create the most exclusive, remote wellness center in the world, we embraced warm, natural stone and reclaimed hardwood for floors, walls and ceilings, replaced traditional chair vs chair therapy rooms with library spaces, and gave each private bedroom a cozy, understated but luxurious feel with in-room bathrooms, minibars, writing desks and plenty of places to sit and read or reflect. The kitchen eschews cold stainless steel, which is so cold to the touch. Instead, we used white nephrite jade from the Northwestern province of China for the countertops and leggy wood cabinetry for a more unfitted look. The communal dinning area is farmhouse style. A below-grade stone-walled billiard room offers an escape and the acupuncture/massage therapy space is ever so slightly French Industrial. A yoga and pilates space is filled with light to inspire. Master Herbalists staff the apothecary. At night, walking paths are revealed by soft illumination.
A Connecticut Mansion is Reborn
Left to deteriorate over the decades, this 19th century mansion was brought back to life and into the current century with bold colors and luxurious furnishings, selected from the client's personal inventory.