In Springs, a beloved 'Museum of Low Taste'

In their Springs home, Bonnie Maslin and her husband, Yehuda Nir, have 60 lazy Susans, cupboards upon cupboards of vertically stacked and colorful plates, and enough china -- on shelves, hidden in cabinets and stacked in drawers -- to serve thousands. And that’s not even the half of it.

Maslin said she and her husband have gathered a collection of post-war American kitsch they believe has no rival. As long as it fits the time period -- from the end of World War II into the 1950s -- no item is too trivial, too extraneous or too ugly for the Museum of Low Taste, the name a friend gave their home, and one they have warmly embraced.

“There is a lot of charm here,” Maslin said, walking through room after room of her home and in each one taking pleasure in delving through the possession she has there. “And there’s a lot of ugliness, too.”

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Maslin said the couple built an extension on the house 18 months ago in large part because the lazy Susans started to take over what was then 900-square-foot home. Maslin said the beachfront wood-shingled home, which overlooks Gardiner’s Bay, now measures 3,000 square feet.

Maslin said she’s not sure exactly how the Museum of Low Taste,  or MOLT, started, but the collection was something that grew organically as she and her husband, both therapists, found excitement in finding odd pieces and creating narratives to connect them.

Nir likes to create story lines for the displays, Maslin said.

For example, on a shelf that features a book Maslin, 63, and Nir, 80, wrote together to help single women pick the right men, Nir has displayed porcelain figurines of smiling women -- the ones, he says, the book has helped.

On a shelf below that sits Nir’s memoir, “The Lost Childhood,” about surviving the Holocaust, which is surrounded by figurines of elves and Snow White, because she was lost in the woods and being pursued, which is how Maslin said Nir, who is now retired, felt for a large portion of his life.

The couple also finds satisfaction in matching pairs. Though the majority of items in the Museum of Low Taste seem to come in sets, Maslin said that with very few exceptions, everything was found at a different time and place. Pointing out a 13-piece ceramic kitchenware set made to look like it was woven, Maslin said each piece was found separately.

“We try and unite the families,” she said. “In our own personal lives, there were a lot of lost families, so we like to reconstitute families in the collection.”

But it’s not all so serious.

“The whimsy is contagious,” she said. “We’re so comfortable making fun of ourselves that everyone joins in the fun.”

She said MOLT is the couple’s personal playground, but that as more people picked up on what they were doing, Nir began giving spontaneous tours, and more and more people started donating objects they had found at yard sales.

Though lazy Susans of every color and design constitute a large part of the collection, there are also other odds and ends like hand-crocheted bottle cozies, a Lady Sunbeam manicure set and facial sauna, a cigarette holder, an egg poacher, art work, and a collection within a collection of JFK and Jackie O. memorabilia. There’s also a salon chair, a telephone chair, and too much hidden “to think you’ve seen in all in one trip,” Maslin said.

And it's all serendipitous, she said. The couple doesn’t spend an excessive amount of time at yard sales, but rather has a keen eye while they travel -- because despite all the ugliness, Maslin said “you have to have good taste before you can have bad taste.”