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SECOND TIME AROUNDSon Keep the memory of his dad---and his own fervor for collecting---alive at new Safran's By Marc Rapport Published in THE STATE Newspaper Saturday, November 16, 2002
Mike Safran is the Safran behind the Safran's Antiques, Interiors and Collectibles store that popped up in September like a memory on Whaley Street just off Assembly Street. He also is the son of Milton Safran, who owned and operated a thriving antiques business, also called Safran's, a Gervais Street landmark through the 1950s and 1960s until his death in 1974. Mike Safran said he started hearing from old-timers and old friends the moment he painted his name on the building. "I've already had one person stop in and say, 'Hey, who are you using that name?' I laughed and said I came by it honestly," Safran, 43, said while giving a tour of the eclectic collection he displays in the 10,000 square foot former steel-fabrication shop. "My grandfather was a furniture dealer who somehow ended up in the South in the 1930s. Then my dad grew up in the business," Safran said. After World War II, Milton Safran began to buy antiques in Europe instead of going through middlemen in the Northeast. "That's how he really got his business started," Safran said. And that's also how it ended. In 1974, Milton Safran died in a commercial airline crash near Paris. He left behind a wife, June, four children at home and a business that occupied several buildings at the heart of the Vista. News of the reopening of a Safran's store evoked memories for some longtime Columbians, including Jerry Breger, a retired USC economics professor and a friend of the late Milton Safran. "When I got the card in the mail announcing Mike's store was open, my thoughts were, 'Now, there's someone who was raised in the lore of antiques,'" Breger said. "But his father not only bought estates and sold antiques, he made custom furniture that was beautiful and extremely valuable." Milton Safran's businesses included an auction house - antique chairs and tables would be stacked to the ceilings in those old buildings, Mike Safran recalled-and a furniture-restoring and reproduction operation that employed as many as 15 craftsmen. Fine antiques and high-end furniture reproductions were a specialty for Milton Safran, but his store was a place for everyone, one old customer and friend recalled. "He dealt the same with every class of people, from the very rich to would-be collectors to regular folks like me," said Ross Beard of Camden. And these who could afford even less, Beard said: "Milton would always give them a break. I'm sure Mike will be a chip off the old block." Sigmund Friedman, a veteran downtown Columbia businessman, is among those who were happy to see the Safran name reappear. "It's not well known anymore, but at the time he died, Milton was recognized as one of the top experts on antiques between New York and New Orleans. His knowledge was unbelievable," said the owner of bonded Loan Office on Assembly Street. "And here you have Mike, who is so knowledgeable himself, and you just have to think how Mike had to pretty much learn it on his own, since he was so young when his dad died. His dad could have taught him so much." |
To Mike Safran, it's all about appreciation. Appreciation for history, for
art, for sports stars and old movie posters, for historic newspapers, old
furniture, old friends and his own family legacy.