About Retropatio
Retropatio is a collection of redesigned outdoor steel and aluminum furniture originally produced in America from 1919 – 1960. I refinished many of these antique pieces for my home and they were photographed for Coastal Living, Metropolitan Home magazines and television segments were taped for HGTV and House Beautiful for A & E. People all over the country contacted me and I began to refinish pieces of my collection as a business.
I first got interested in vintage outdoor furniture in 1996 when my husband and I were building an indoor/outdoor house in the Santa Monica Mountains
of Los Angeles. We trucked an airplane hangar, a Butler building, from North Dakota to our property and built the house underneath it. I knew the polished concrete
flooring and industrial materials of this modern home would require some decorating warmth. Naturally I thought of antiques, and because the house would have nearly
as much outdoor room footage, under the roof, but still outdoors, as enclosed I thought of antique outdoor furniture.
Immediately I remembered the swinging gliders of my Southern childhood. Memories of firefly summers, sweet lemonade in tumblers of tinkling ice, ice cold watermelons,
barbeques, and happy family gatherings made me smile. I believe the glider is the most nostalgic piece of furniture ever made. So, I focused my collecting on gliders
and glider sets as well as the modern outdoor furniture of the 1930’s.