Brooklyn Architecture Studio JAM Opens Store to Showcase Vintage Collection

Dumbo-based design and architecture studio JAM is opening a shop to showcase its curated — and supremely comfortable — vintage collection, assembled from across the U.S. and Europe by its founders, and good friends, Joe McGuier and Megan Prime.

JAM Shop will offer one of a kind vintage pieces that McGuier and Prime have personally sought out, and have both put through rigorous sit tests for comfort, they told Brownstoner, laughing.

“Megan and I go and we source everything ourselves, and what we’re seeking out is comfort, and it has to be comfortable for both of us. We’re very different sizes, so when it’s comfortable for both of us we know it’s a winner,” McGuier said. “Because, you know, that’s the problem with so much new furniture, and even a fair bit of vintage is just not well proportioned, it’s not comfortable. So everything we have in here we’ve sat in personally in some crazy warehouse.”

With prices ranging from $125 to $16,000, wares include small goods, pottery, lamps, and art, as well as a large variety of chairs, sofas, sectionals, desks, and case goods. The mix covers a number of different styles, from Italian modernism, to Brutalism, to Art Deco — testimony to the fact “design from all different periods can coexist peacefully.”

McGuier said unique pieces are at the core of the collection, pointing out a very rare McCobb case piece made in rosewood. They don’t necessarily have to come from known designers, although there are plenty of those represented.

“We’re not necessarily just looking for Hans Wegners, we have some because they’re great pieces, but we do really relish finding unique one-off studio-made pieces or initial prototypes that didn’t get carried through a line – especially if they’re comfortable. And when they’re well made, obviously, those are kind of core values that we look for in all things,” he said.

He added that resonates with their customers who appreciate the uniqueness of the pieces, especially the Brooklynites.

The shop takes up the majority of JAM’s warehouse studio at 20 Jay Street, a former Arbuckle Brothers coffee warehouse in the Dumbo Historic District. Employee desks and the conference room are located in a section with the most natural light.

Taking a seat in McGuier’s and Prime’s shared office in one of two very large Brutalist chairs from Italy by an unknown designer feels like melting into a woolly mammoth. In the conference room, a bearded man painted in the 1600s hangs above a vintage chair. And upstairs, in one of the spaces JAM has for storage, is a very early Florence Knoll case piece that was reportedly purchased by Frank Lloyd Wright’s chauffeur, McGuier said. “None of this can be verified, but it almost moves into lore.”

Although the scouting trips are a “crazy time investment, with tons of dead ends,” meeting with collectors and dealers across Europe and the U.S., doing the face-to-face, and hearing the stories is one of Prime’s favorite parts of the job. “Everybody’s passionate in this industry, and that passes down to us and we fall in love with [the pieces],” she said. “We want to share that with whoever’s coming in to see us, too.”

The pair pride themselves on their approachability, and that they work hands-on on every project that crosses JAM’s desk. The vintage collection, they said, is frequently rearranged to emulate clients’ living spaces, to give them an idea of scale and look.

“At its core, we love doing this,” McGuier said. “It’s been going so well for our clients that we just want to share this process of appreciation with our fellow designers and the wider public. For us, when we got to Europe a few times a year, it is incredibly inspiring, professionally, and it’s so much fun, she’s my best friend, we have a blast, so this is going to allow us to do that to do it more.”

McGuier and Prime went to design school at the University of Cincinnati and both moved to New York around 17 years ago. Despite initial dreams of living in Manhattan, price dictated that McGuier settle in Williamsburg and Prime in Greenpoint — where she still is. McGuier and his family have relocated to Dumbo (“walking to the office is too tempting”). Both said as soon as they landed in Brooklyn they knew they weren’t going anywhere else.

After working for firms in private residential architecture for nine years, they decided they wanted to flex more of their creative brains, and eight years ago formed JAM. McGuier said they have always sought out clients who truly appreciate design, “because what we were doing at our old firms was sort of very cut and paste, you know, very run of the mill, and there was no real creativity to it.”

“We slowly built a client base that appreciates design and the design process in the sense of discovery, and that had started out just on the architecture side, but we have always felt that what most people call interior design is integral to the overall finished house. So we pushed into offering that to our clients as soon as we could, essentially as soon as we could build the trust.”

He said from the start of their sourcing days, which was roughly three years ago, there was a natural inclination towards vintage “because the quality is there, the thoughtfulness of design, and the comfort is there, you know, that is really missing [in] a lot of new furniture.”

Prior to the shop’s opening, the pair have only been selling to clients, who they said are based all over the city, upstate, and across the East Coast. Thinking about who the customers will be at the new shop, they anticipate a number of fellow designers and architects “that need to solve the problem that we first solved for our own clients” about making vintage approachable, and then a number of Brooklynites, and especially design-loving Dumbo residents.

The store will be open by appointment starting today, May 23, and can be viewed online at JAM’s website (although there will be some items only viewable in person, Prime teased).

The shop opening isn’t the end of McGuier’s and Prime’s plans for JAM either. McGuier said the goal is to become a more visible part of the up-and-coming Dumbo design district by having a street-level location where people “can shop and gather and be creative and have a drink or coffee and sort of add some really necessary street life to Dumbo.”

[Photos by Susan De Vries]

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