Global living

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when Bryan Rishforth started collecting.

He learned to love antiques when his parents bought a circa 1886 Victorian B&B in Cape May years ago, renovated it, and filled it with period pieces.

Mindy, like her husband, favors off-the-beaten-path traveling. Born into an Air Force family, she called Europe her home for years, then globe-hopped for her career. She's the type to jump on a bike after a business meeting for a 20-mile jaunt of exploration.

"I have gypsy blood," she likes to say.

Now married for almost 10 years, the Rishforths have been to 61 countries between them. They have filled their home with antiques from their travels and have started a business, R&R Global Partners, importing and selling wares to designers and homeowners who share their love for Asian antiques.

It all started in the summer of 2003, when they were leaving Cincinnati in search of a house on the Main Line. They found and bought a grand 10,000-square-foot stone home built in 1926 on the former 600-acre Ashbridge estate in Bryn Mawr. In renovating it, the couple maintained the style and integrity of the home with its two formal entrances, gracious moldings, and tiger-wood staircase. When they moved in, they brought with them their trove of global finds.

Yet what they owned still wasn't enough to furnish the 26 rooms. So they inquired about filling half a container to ship back to the States. The result was a real East-meets-West house - and a new business. "You would never think of Great Gatsby and Qing Dynasty working together, but it does," says Bryan, who is managing partner of R&R Private Equity.

The decorating challenge was taking pieces from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa and making it all look cohesive. So Mindy called Barbara Gisel Design Ltd. of Haverford to help bring together the right furniture, accessories, and rugs.

In the living room, Gisel took the base of a Chinese bed and used it as a coffee table. Under that she put a Chinese rug from Woven Treasures in Philadelphia, which picked up the colors in the room and brightened the space. In the Rishforth library, Gisel and designers Sue Hummerston and Tess Hoey hung part of Bryan's 50-piece mask collection above the Tibetan drum used as a side table. They added lamps and pillows, and placed a colorful Woven Treasures kilim underfoot.

Eventually, the couple got the idea of sharing the wealth when friends would see one of their signature apothecary chests or altar tables and ask, "Can you buy something like that on your next trip to Asia?"

Bryan still travels to Asia six to eight times a year and is always hunting for the new and different.

The Rishforths had a local company excavate their basement as a way to add four feet of height to house their vast inventory of Ming and Qing Dynasty items - massive carved doors and screens, desks and tables, stone sculptures and art, beds and sideboards, armoires and chairs.

Even though most pieces have a provenance, the house is anything but museumlike. "Nothing is showcased here and we really use everything," says Mindy. "I really feel like you can kick your feet up in this house, and I know that is why people like coming here to visit," she adds.

"For guests, I feel like every piece is a great conversation piece," says Bryan.

Recently they hosted 14 for the weekend for Mindy's father's 60th birthday. "Guests can never seem to pick a room to settle in," says Mindy. "It is the kind of house you can roam around and never get tired of."