Gordon Atwater estate to be auctioned in Panama City The estate of the late Gordon Ingham Atwater – a petroleum pioneer who predicted the first gas shortage prior to his death in 1973 at age 66 – will be held Saturday, Jan. 30, in Panama City, Fla.
News-Antique.com - Jan 04,2010 - (PANAMA CITY, Fla.) – The estate of the late Gordon Ingham Atwater – a renowned petroleum pioneer who was an expert in oil and gas reserves in the United States and accurately predicted the first gas shortage prior to his death in 1973 at age 66 – will be held Saturday, Jan. 30, beginning at 9 a.m. (CST). The sale has already gone online, with Internet bidding facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com.
The auction is being conducted by Specialists of the South, Inc., based in Panama City, not far from the upscale estate known as Osceola Lodge in nearby Lynn Haven, where Mr. Atwater and his wife, Emogene, called home from the early 1960s until their deaths in the 1970s.
For nearly 50 years, Osceola Lodge served as a showcase for the many wonderful furniture items and fine decorative accessories brought by the Atwaters from New Orleans – where Mr. Atwater cut his teeth as the city’s first consulting geologist, setting up his own business in 1945 – to Lynn Haven, where they fell in love with the area’s New Orleans-like environs. Osceola Lodge overlooks Anderson Bayou.
“It’s truly a privilege to be involved with this type of estate, one that’s so rich in history and local tradition,” said Logan Adams of Specialists of the South. “Mr. Atwater, his wife and family have all been forces in this community, enormously respected as people with taste and style. And their many possessions reflect that. Over 400 lots will cross the block, and we expect a crowd of about 100 people.”
The auction will be held at the Specialists of the South’s gallery, located at 544 E. 6th Street in Panama City. Offered will be beautiful period furniture items, to include a pair of fauteuil chairs with carved crests, a burl decorated slope-lid parlor desk, a set of six balloon chairs with cabriole legs, a walnut shelf-back sideboard with spool legs, a 5-shelf carved étagère, an “X”-style gout stool, and a diminutive Empire settee (circa 1840), 43 inches wide and in overall good condition.
Other furniture pieces include a walnut marble-top table with burl decoration, a 6-drawer bird's eye maple chest, a gorgeous cane rocker, a Hepplewhite-style sideboard, beautiful twin bed headboards, footboards and rails, a nice cedar chest, and a folding table with mother of pearl inlaid top. Also, an Empire sofa by the famous maker Francois Seignouret will be sold. Mr. Seignouret was a New Orleans furniture maker and wine merchant around 1808.
Decorative accessories will feature a Cybis porcelain figure collection (to include a wood duck, two bunnies, a snow owl, squirrel, burro, raccoon, pandas, a buffalo and a bear; plus young girl figures, like Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks with a panda, Peter Pan, Wendy, Pollyanna, Rapunzel, Pandora and a girl with flowers), a ceramic jug with colorful corn design and cork base stopper, a George Washington glazed figure, carved soapstone bookends, a hand-painted Sevres Bavarian coffee pot marked “Marechal Niels” (signed A. Grenier), a Chinese vase with 3-dimensional flowers,
