For 40 years, Mary Lou Walhbergh has been a strict enforcer of antique sale rules: no one buys in advance and no one gets inside before the gates open.
Walbergh began selling antiques in her front yard on Bonsall Drive once a year in 1973, bringing in a variety of friends and family to help and contribute their own items, and drawing crowds from throughout Southern California. Last weekend, after 40 years of building tradition and expanding the sale, Walbergh closed her gates to buyers for good.
“We all got too old. It’s a great deal of work setting it out to make it look as pretty as it does and I don’t want to do it if we can’t do it right,” she said.
Walbergh said she had the idea to start an antique sale when she bought an old oak table at the Rose Bowl but none of the sets of chairs she had matched. When no one responded to ads selling the chairs, she took matters into her own hands and formed the antique sale.
“I put into action all the ideas I’ve always had about garage sales,” she said. “It will have an absolute time when no one can get in. It will have expenses apportioned out according to what percentage of the overall sales people made. It will have things set out beautifully.”
She gathered a few of her friends and organized the first sale, starting a tradition that evolved from simply selling antiques in her front yard to gathering old friends for a weekend of good food, good company and reminiscing.
“Sometimes, we don’t see each other for the whole year,” Walbergh said, “but when we do, it’s like we’ve never been apart.”
Every year, friends and family return to Malibu for the weekend from all over California to help Walbergh organize and to sell some items of their own. Don and Sally Macfadyen, who have joined Walbergh nearly every year since the first sale, came from Solvang to sell and celebrate the final sale.
“It’s really nostalgic,” Sally Macfadyen said. “There’s nothing else really like it. A lot of people coming to buy are our old friends.”
And sellers weren’t the only ones to plan their summers around the sale.
“People used to plan their vacations around the sale,” Walbergh said. “They would email me or call me and say, ‘It’s still the third weekend in July? Because we’re planning our vacation and we don’t want to miss it.’”
As buyers walked around Walbergh’s yard, browsing antique furniture, dishes, toys, clothing and all the odds and ends that made their way to tables, they were greeted warmly by Walbergh and her many helpers, often stopping to reminisce.
Gisela Guttmann first visited Walbergh’s sale about 20 years ago. The two met that day after discussing woven baskets Guttmann wanted to buy, and have remained friends since.
“It’s sad that this is the last one,” said Guttmann, who always found something to buy at Walbergh’s sales. “It’s something that really gives you joy. There are little treasures for everyone.”
Others were newer to the sale, like Claudia Von Mallinckrodt, 23, from Santa Monica, who discovered the sale three years ago.
“Every time I come, I find something. You’ll find something different. Other people aren’t going to have it. It’s not your average Hobby Lobby stuff,” she said. “I wish someone could carry it on.”
As Saturday afternoon slowed down, Walbergh took a break to sit down for lunch, and reminisce about early sales and old friends. She spoke of Dale Rickards, a horse wrangler who died a few years ago, with Don and Sally Macfadyen. They said he was known for many things among the group, including his “funky” contributions to the sale, his love of Dr. Pepper and his refusal to use the bathroom in Walbergh’s house.
On Sunday evening, Walbergh closed the doors on the sale for the last time.
“I can’t tell you how many people talked to me [Saturday] morning and said they were so sad and enjoyed it so much,” Walbergh said.
But she said it was time to say goodbye.
“We’ve loved it, we’ve had a wonderful time, but it’s time to quit while everyone’s sorry we’re going. Not while they’re saying, ‘Oh, they’re not what they used to be.’”
