A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Jay Krehbiel grew up in a family of collectors. His father, Fred, ran Molex, the family electronics manufacturing business that they ultimately sold to Koch Industries for $7.2 billion, and along with his mother, Kay, Jay developed a keen interest in the decorative arts. The family’s homes in Chicago and Palm Beach were filled with English porcelain, silver, and furniture; Ballyfin Demesne, the Irish manor house that his family bought and restored, was later converted into a hotel.

Fred was one of the first investors in Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, a regional Chicago powerhouse founded by a relative, and Jay has continued the Krehbiel tradition by expanding the family’s interest in that firm and acquiring others in Ohio and Philadelphia. He now serves as the executive chairman of the combined enterprise, Freeman’s, which has staked out a position in the surprisingly strong middle market. I spoke to him earlier this month about how he assembled the company, the unique opportunities and challenges facing regional auctioneers, what it means to be a “national middle-market champion,” and why the American paintings market remains an engine of his business. As always, this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

There are, of course, very strong names in that space. Leslie Hindman Auctioneers was one of them; Freeman’s was another in Philadelphia. But the complicated natures of so many of these estates we were dealing with—involving hundreds of objects across many different categories of sale, many of which were of real value—suggested there was this hole in the middle. And that’s where we’ve really tried to build.

Was that the first business you bought in the art space?

Yeah. Dad was one of Leslie’s original backers when she opened in 1982 in Chicago, and was on her board. I had never worked in the business. We talked over the years as she evolved her business strategy, which is the one I think we’re following quite closely.

Can you speak to me about your expansion over the years?

First was Leslie Hindman Auctioneers. Then we bought Cowan’s in 2019 in Cincinnati. That allowed us to expand the reach of the company to the entire Ohio Valley—Northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus—in addition to selling material that we hadn’t had the level of expertise and depth in, such as Native American material, certain American historical ephemera, American furniture, etcetera.

From there, it’s been a combination of organic growth, as well as bringing in team members and groups as we’ve continued to build in Florida and in the Northeast, which culminated in the acquisition of Freeman’s. Freeman’s had an incredible reputation and legacy in the Philadelphia area and in the Northeast more broadly, and brought a great reputation for American furniture and American painting, which strengthened the overall offering of the combined firm.

You say there’s value to single-owner collections in your $1 million to $5 million price band. Is that value simply the knowledge that these works were collected by someone with taste, or does it lie in the storytelling, or the idea that these aren’t just random objects?

I think it’s a little of all three. The provenance matters. People are known collectors. Whenever you see furniture that happened to pass through certain dealers, even that improves the provenance. The story matters, how these objects were brought together. When we have single-owner sales, people will come up to me and say, I knew that person. I bought something from their collection, and I think of them when I look at it. We have those stories, and people have those connections. Especially for sellers, when you bring a collection together and present it in a unified and thoughtful way, I think it makes people go, Gosh, Mom and Dad had a good eye. They weren’t just hoarders. They brought together this collection of objects that’s interesting, and interesting to other people. I think that’s true in many cases, no matter what category people are collecting across.

Do the types of connections you speak of correlate to the advantage of being local? For example, Leonard Lauder was well known for his business and philanthropy, but few people would say they knew him personally or want to own something connected to him. In a regional or local context, you’re more likely to see these kinds of connections. Is that part of what sets you apart from the global auction houses?

We always say we’re operating locally and globally. I think you can do both, and that’s what our mission is—to have these relationships, these points of connectivity with families, and to be able to bring those stories. But for us, $1 million to $5 million is potentially the collection in totality. We’re not active in the $1 million to $5 million object space. We’ve been privileged to sell lots for over $1 million. We’ve sold lots up to $4 million, and that’s great. But the space we’re operating in is—the collection may be $5 million in total, but the individual objects we’re selling are far more between $1,000 and $1 million, and more often than not between $2,500 and $25,000. The market for that material is active, it’s strong, it continues to perform well, and there are people out there who want to buy it.

You mentioned to me before that there’s a really active market for American paintings. I’ve noticed that seems to also be happening at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Can you describe how the American paintings market plays into your business?

Absolutely. The Freeman’s team has long had strength in American paintings, and has been committed to that market. There remains a devoted collecting community to that space. And these are really extraordinary, beautiful works of art. So we’ve remained totally committed to that space, and the results have been strong. American paintings may not be keeping up with postwar and contemporary art, but there’s real value there and a deep collecting community who loves them. We’ve been thrilled to continue putting together great sales of that material.