RESTORATION Extraordinaire

EARS AGO, Rick Ponder bought a Victorian dining table at an estate sale, for $200. He needed chairs, then, to go with the table … and so began his love of 19th-century design: the furniture, silver, ceramics, lighting. With growing collections, Rick and his wife, Mary Lou, searched for an appropriate stage. They’d visited many house museums, including the Campbell House in St. Louis, the Victoria Mansion in Portland, Maine, and the Lockwood–Mathews