Elizabeth Haynie Wainstein of The Potomack Company in Alexandria.
One of Alexandria’s most respected businesses — with loads of interesting stories to tell — is The Potomack Company, an auction house located at 1120 N. Fairfax St. in a 15,000 square-foot warehouse.
The location is perfect for local and international travelers alike who fly into nearby Reagan National to bid on unique items. The company is owned and run by Elizabeth Haynie Wainstein.
A native of Fairhope, Ala., Wainstein grew up in nearby Pass Christian, Miss., and came to Virginia for college, majoring in art history at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, about a three-hour drive, south of Alexandria.
After college, she interned at Sotheby’s Auctions in New York City.
“It was a blast,” said Wainstein, who was on the phone from Vail, Colo., where one of her daughters was playing lacrosse. “I went for the summer and ended up staying for eight years.” (One of those eight years was spent at Sotheby’s in London.)
She moved from New York to Alexandria with her husband, Ken Wainstein, whom she met in New York; an attorney and former Justice Department official, he is an Alexandria native.
Wainstein opened a gallery, Brockett’s Row Antiques, which was in business for 13 years at 277 S. Washington (home most recently to the former Society Fair gourmet emporium).
Starting The Potomack Company, her own auction house, was made easy with the advent of the Internet, she said. “With the power of the Internet, it allowed regional auction houses to reach this worldwide audience that Sotheby’s and Christie’s had always had a corner on, because they had international offices. With these new platforms, we were able to compete and get prices that were strong for our sellers and reach a worldwide audience to compete and get good prices.”
She got in touch with colleagues both regionally and nationally to create a team of specialists who are experts at sizing up antiques, paintings and more in a variety of categories.
Although there are plenty of consignors and buyers in Alexandria, “supporting us and getting us off the ground,” Wainstein said her business takes her far and wide from consigning items from France to catering to buyers in China.
“I think our location in Old Town is perfect,” she said. “We have 15,000 square feet, parking is not a problem, anyone can fly into Reagan. Buyers come from everywhere. The Chinese market is very strong — they’re flying into Reagan or are on the phone from China.” Auction staff members can assist clients in several languages including Spanish, French and Mandarin.
Some of the items that go up for auction do attract international buyers. For example, a white jade table screen from the Qing dynasty (1736-1796) sold in 2010 for $411,000. Many objects that go on the auction block have local significance.
A painting by Alexandria native William MacLeod, “Bridge Over Hunting Creek,” sold for $87,000 two years ago. Painted in 1860, the artwork depicts rural Alexandria, with wagons and people near West Grove Plantation, a white frame house atop Mount Eagle, an estate built by Lord Fairfax and the final home outside Mount Vernon where George Washington dined before his death. MacLeod’s paintings hang at the White House and at the National Gallery of Art.
What do you enjoy most about living in Alexandria? It’s a small-town feel. Walking at night in Old Town, what gets better than that? You get all the benefits of a small town, everyone knows their neighbors, but we’re just outside of Washington D.C. and you get all the benefits of being near the nation’s capital.
Tell us about one of your more interesting items that has gone on the auction block at the Potomack Company. A consignor of a George Nakashima fine burl oak coffee table had purchased the table in 1968. In her home, she put her feet on it and her Coke can and her Beagles ran around it. She had no idea how much the value had increased. It sold for $117,000 in 2007.
What would be your dream auction item? I think it would be something with strong local provenance. Anything related to George Washington.
What inspired the name of your company? We chose the name The Potomack Company because it’s a business George Washington helped found, to encourage commerce to come to Alexandria. They held their first meeting at Gadsby’s Tavern and we held our first meeting at Gadsby’s Tavern.
