After a 4,484 Day Wait, I Finally Bought the Theodore Alexander Althorp Grand Staircase Secretary Desk

This project in New Albany is taking me down memory lane and making me revisit different times in my life. That statement will make sense in a moment.

I finally did it. I bought the Theodore Alexander Althorp Grand Staircase secretary desk that I’ve wanted for a long time. It is a walnut and burl workhorse for reading and document review that features a ton of storage and hidden compartments. The stairs open. The staircase moves and reveals “rooms” behind them with more compartments. Pens, highlighters, Post-It notes, basically anything I need to review, stacks and stacks of paperwork can be placed neatly in here with no distractions from phones or computers.

The backstory: On February 16th, 2012, Aaron and I were at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. We popped into a home design store that was there at the time and saw it for the first time. It was incredible. I took pictures. I was only 29 years old. My thinking, which is no surprise to many of you, came down to a time value of money trade-off. I could either purchase the desk or I could increase my ownership of wonderful businesses. Even using historically conservative assumptions based upon real return data, each dollar put in equities should have compounded to at least $13.07 in real purchasing power by retirement whereas that same dollar left until the end of natural life expectancy might grow to at least $54.15 in real purchasing power for my then-future children and grandchildren. With a price tag that was not modest, this was real money.

For that reason, after reflection and a few calculations which included a review of other choices on the table, we decided to purchase a Century Furniture desk at far below retail using the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder discount, instead. We were so young and focused on expanding our online businesses, piling up ownership of stocks, setting up a home … we certainly did not deny ourselves much but this was one of those areas where discipline and prudence caused me to make a choice based not on my heart, but on my head.

After opting for the Century Furniture desk, I wanted to amortize the cost as far out as I could, getting the daily use figure down to essentially nothing. Still, the Theodore Alexander desk never left my mind. I knew that at some point, I would buy it when I had a specific use case and the time value of money calculation was different. With it being 2024 – a dozen years later – the “n” variable in my compounding calculations has changed. I’m older. My income and net worth are far higher so that it’s pointless for me to deny myself something that brings me so much happiness. Future me is going to get far more joy and utility out of using the desk each day than an extra five or six figures in real purchasing power at retirement, which won’t make any noticeable difference in my standard of living.

Unfortunately, there are none for sale on the auction markets right now. I wasn’t going to put it off any longer. I had waited long enough. Instead, I found two authorized dealers. The first would ship it to me right away and would charge me full retail plus sales tax plus shipping for delivery in two to three weeks. The second would ship it from the manufacturer but they would give me a 21.78% discount plus throw in free white-glove delivery. The catch was I would need to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas.

It will shock no one that I took the discount and free shipping. I’ve already been patient, waiting 4,484 days since I first saw it to actually make the purchase, so what are a few more months? I also trusted the second dealer quite a bit. My experience working with them thus far has been excellent. I had a question about a specific piece of furniture and they got the actual factory to send me a picture of it on the factory floor so I could look at the finish to decide if it would work with what we were doing.

Other Updates About the New Albany Project

Speaking of Theodore Alexander, we found some side tables by the same manufacturer that I think are going to be perfect for the merger of form and function we’re looking for in the space we are envisioning. Placed next to a large, soft Chesterfield leather sofa or a beautiful, upholstered chair – the kind you can curl up into with a book and a cup of coffee – these are going to be ideal.

As with nearly everything we’re adding to the property as we transform the interior design to match the architecture, the price was good, too. Not spectacular like some of the bargains we’ve been getting, but still really satisfactory. We were able to pick up a matching set in near perfect condition via the secondary market for about 34.8¢ on the dollar for what we would have paid retail post-ordinary discounts or sales (since almost no one pays full retail, anyway, if they know what they are doing). Why wouldn’t I take a few insignificant scratches that can be repaired for such steep savings? Indeed, it’s no secret that one of the big keys to how we’ve managed to amass our family estate over time is that we were careful on the utility of money side, wanting to have our cake and eat it, too. By making our dollar outlays so productive, we still get what we want but it frees up more cash to devote to acquiring productive assets, which in our case has mostly meant ownership in wonderful businesses.

There is also a game aspect to it I’ve talked about at least two dozen times on the blog over the years. Bargain hunting is fun. Stocks. Bonds. Real estate. Side tables. Cars. Fountain pens. It truly doesn’t matter how much capital I accumulate, the dopamine hit of getting value is so rewarding. The drawback, and why I think a lot of folks can’t do it, is that it requires a lot of patience. Heaps and heaps of patience. You have to be able to calmly wait, sometimes for years, while you delay consumption. If you focus on quality, though, once you get the compounding cycle going, it’s not a big deal. As an added bonus, you can often meet lots of interesting people, many of whom are passionate about shared interests and whom are a wealth of knowledge.

Of course, a downside the practitioner can’t really mitigate: When you find something you truly love, you may not be able to get it, again, if anything ever happens to it unless you’re willing to pay full price. For example, some of you may recall the phenomenal deal we got on that new Jaguar XJL 3.0 AWD Portfolio Edition at the very end of 2016. True, we had to make one trade-off (I wanted the wooden steering wheel but the model the dealer wanted move in order to make room for new-year versions had a heated leather steering wheel, instead). No matter, it was otherwise perfect. That car has been, and continues to be, an absolute dream. It easily ranks in the top ten purchases we’ve ever made in terms of joy and utility relative to cost. We were so happy with it, that Aaron and I considered buying a second model in Black to match the white one before deciding to wait and see what we needed once we had kids. A couple of years back, we both came to the conclusion that if anything ever happened to the one we had, we’d just go buy another new Jaguar XJL as long as they were largely the same, even if we had to take it at sticker. Unfortunately, management of the company decided after many, many generations to discontinue four-door luxury sedans and eliminated the flagship model so it’s not even possible, anymore. That means when we do go to look for another one at some point, everything will be back on the table. The benefits are worth it. It’s simply something one must deal with if they insist on saving money.

Elsewhere, we’ll have a couple of lamps in the style of temple jars.

We also decided that we are going with a bit of a bird motif for three reasons:

1. Partly, this is because our return to the Midwest has reminded us of how much we missed having beautiful birds around everywhere – cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, robins, hawks – especially when they are in flowering trees or standing out amidst the crisp white snow. It’s been a lot of fun to spot them on our walks with the boys or listen to them singing each morning. As I write this, there is a beautiful lady cardinal tending a nest in the evergreens outside the window, popping in and out of the branches as she inspects her work.
2. Partly, it is because there is an abundance of historically appropriate flatware, dinnerware, artwork, and decorative accents that we can select from, allowing us to buy from not just modern retailers (e.g., in the case of dinnerware where improved safety standards are a must), but also from auction houses, antiques dealers, estate sales, and private negotiations.
3. Partly because we simply think they are beautiful and in-line with the more historically-appropriate side of the design spectrum where we are dialing in the pattern language. Jewel tones. Gold accents. There is a joy, and a warmth, there that doesn’t exist in colder patterns.

The key is to keep the general room tight and clean so there isn’t too much clutter or ornamentation, allowing the pieces to stand out. That’s going to require millwork in the spirit of the era; something like the Kuiken Brothers classical reproductions. It’s a very Benjamin Franklin / Thomas Jefferson / Alexander Hamilton / George Washington type vibe. The tobacco, spice, coffee, and chocolate investments we have, both personally and on the books at Kennon-Green & Co. for the private clients, seem particularly appropriate in the setting given their distinct timelessness. Of course, I love our software and technology investments, too. It’s just … how can one not want to sit by the fireplace and study the dividends coming in from selling cinnamon and thyme?

I love themes. If you’re going to do something, do it right.

Again, I reiterate: This will take 36 months to complete. Even a year from now, it will be nowhere near where I want it to be by the time the project is completed. It is going to take patience as choices start to compound on themselves. But both Aaron and I see the final vision.

I do think, too, that psychologically this is Aaron and I rejecting both:

1. The throw-away “fast fashion” in furniture and housewares. We’re both tired of our society making everything so disposable.
2. The chaos of the always-on era of globalization where you can’t help hear about every single conflict and disaster happening in the world at any given moment.

All of my systems – how I handle the phone, email, television – are designed to minimize distractions. We are essentially building, in design language, what amounts to a pre-internet world. It forces us, via structure, to think more slowly and methodically. It allows us to step back and see the big picture. It also has massive benefits for personal contentment.