Our Story
Quittner originated as a small antiques store inspired by a shared passion for artifacts from the past. Today, we are a design practice, workshop, and retail store rooted in traditional forms that offers historically-informed lighting and homewares alongside a curated collection of antique pieces.
Founders Benjamin Q. Davidson and Pippa Biddle both grew up in old houses and among families that are deeply tied to the past. For Ben, he learned proportion, layering, and the importance of a slightly askew book from Midwood, his grandmother’s 1880’s home in the Hudson Valley of New York. Pippa absorbed a comfort with the past and an appreciation for the layering that comes with generations of material history in the Ridgely House, a 1726 home her family has lived in continuously since 1760.
Brought together as children on a farm in the mountains of New York and reunited as grown-ups who wanted to do something that mattered, but didn’t quite know what that meant, Pippa and Ben looked to where they started for inspiration — back when they were working with their hands and catering to their curiosity.
Quittner seeks to preserve and create through the objects one surrounds oneself with and the people who make them. In our workshop, we revive family treasures and create new ones. In our store, curated pieces from the past connect with the present through new forms that draw on traditional methods and techniques.
We believe a home should amplify what you value by layering objects from the past and treasures from the present with an eye towards an optimistic future. All of our sourcing and manufacturing is local, and we prioritize the use of natural and renewable materials. We take presenting our designs alongside antiques as a challenge. They too must last a century.
Explore the Full Collection
Press
Our work has been featured in numerous publications including:
Architectural Digest (November 2023), Hudson Valley Magazine (April 2022, January 2023, August 2023 - web version), New York Cottages & Gardens and Hamptons Cottages & Gardens (May/June 2023), House Beautiful (October 2022), Veranda (October 2022), Designers Today (October 2022), Inside + Out Upstate NY (October 2022), Chronogram (October 2022), Brownstoner (September 2022, October 2022), Upstate House (Summer 2022, Winter 2022), The Albany Times Union (March 11, 2022), The New York Times (March 2022), Financial Times (May 2022), The Magazine ANTIQUES, The Curious Objects Podcast (December 2020)
Object Lessons
Pippa and Ben have written the Object Lesson feature for each issue of The Magazine ANTIQUES since 2019. Explore past Object Lessons.
Our Team
