Specializing in art and antiques, Three Rivers Auction Co. is Washington County’s only auction house

By Scott Beveridge

Tripp Kline is a natural fit for the auction business, having absorbed the business from his grandmother, who ran an antique shop for three decades.

The owner of Three Rivers Auction Co.

in Washington spent weekends as a child carrying boxes from sales to her station wagon.

“I grew up around auctions and garage sales,” said Kline, 55. “That’s sort of how it started.”

His wife, Suzanne Ewing, found a job as an attorney in 1988 in Pittsburgh, and that’s how Kline ended up setting up his business seven years later in Washington.

“Western Pennsylvania is great for antiquing. It made all the sense in the world,” said Kline, of South Franklin Township.

Kline operates Washington County’s only auction house, one that specializes in fine art and antiques, mostly acquired from estates. Other items come from people who are downsizing, either after their children are grown or a spouse dies.

“We’re a business that helps people in the transitions of their lives. The market is changing,” he said.

One auction in November sold a man’s vast collection of Mike’s Train House miniature railroad items after he died. In the process, the widow was able to move on with her life, reclaim her basement where the trains were set up and benefit financially.

One sale in December dealt in quilts, old prints and furniture, while another involved large Majolica tobacco jars.

“It all sells,” Kline said.

Some of the weirdest items that he’s sold were among Hollywood movie props from such movies filmed in Pittsburgh as “Silence of the Lambs,” “Lorenzo’s Oil” and “The Mothman Prophecies.”

The makeup table and mirror used by the serial killer in “Silence of the Lambs” was among the oddest pieces he has ever sold. He sold the “shell of a house” used in “Lorenzo’s Oil.” He even found an owner for a $1.5 million apartment building in Squirrel Hill.

More than 200 people crowded his auction house for a large antiques sale Dec. 13, and the people there bought every piece on the lot, including miniature Sheraton furniture from the early 1800s a pair of pastel portraits and presidential portraits from 1901. The presidential portraits sold for $300, and one of the cherry Sheraton pieces went for $625.

The miniatures were a way for carpenters to “show off their craftsmanship” for a child or collector, Kline said.

Such furniture often sells for more than normal-sized furniture, he said.

“That’s what collectors are looking for, unique things.”

The train sale drew “a very serious crowd,” mostly men.

“It’s always fun,” Kline said.

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