The David Lynch estate auction in Beverly Hills doubled as a caffeinated wake

Hundreds of items owned by the late filmmaker David Lynch sold this past week at an estate auction held in a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills. Put to an unofficial test, it's not a stretch to call the affair Lynchian.

The term is used to describe the stylistic undercurrents of his surrealist, genre-bending films, such as Eraserhead and Blue Velvet, similar to how "Kafkaesque" entered the vernacular.

Walk with me.

Was it dream-like? The ritzy auction venue, with curiously empty rooms and halls, certainly gave that impression. The fantasy of endless refills of freshly brewed coffee — Lynch's drink of choice — was reality at the Peninsula hotel. The auction room's crystal chandeliers and a busy carpet design cut against a singular color scheme, kind of like that iconic red room from Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks.

Unsettling? Macabre? Would Lynch have it any other way? It's been five months since his death. Behind a display case of items up for auction, you could still see the sawdust on his woodwork — a reflection of his wide-ranging artistry.

Tom Huddleston, who authored a forthcoming book titled David Lynch: His Work, His World, said he thought it was slightly "ghoulish" that his ordinary dinner plates were being sold so close to his death: "It feels like he's barely gone and they're clearing his stuff away," he said in a phone interview days prior to the auction. Still, it was the writer-director's specialty to marry the mundane and macabre to an unsettling effect.

Darkly comic? Sure! Auctioneers offered dry quips in their light mocking of the clientele. An auctioneer told one bidder in between gavels, "This man looks like he needs an ax."

Most of the bidding action — and seemingly the deepest pockets — came from online and over the phone. But about 20 people felt they had to be there in person. The event drew filmmakers, actors, cinephiles, woodworkers, all fans who could be described in labels ascribed to Lynch himself.

"I just really wanted to tap into the David Lynch energy and be here to absorb this experience," said Nick Hyman, longtime Lynch fan, who writes about film.

A spokesperson for Julien's, which bills itself as "the auction house to the stars," says that's about as packed as their auction rooms get these days.

Filmmaker David Lynch, photographed in his private screening room in Los Angeles in 2010, died in January at age 78.

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Big-ticket items included Lynch's own copies of the Lost Highway screenplay and separately, a set of unfinished screenplays for Ronnie Rocket. Both lots earned the highest bid price at $195,000 after auction house fees. His director's chair, the largest of a small fraction of available items on display, sold for $91,000.

But most attendees who commuted to Beverly Hills went for items that represented some of the lesser-known aspects of Lynch's legacy — the things that facilitated his artistic output: espresso and coffee machines ranging from high-end to budget Mr. Coffees; camera and lighting equipment; worn-in furniture pieces designed by Lynch, and the tools he used to build them.

Like a mirthful wake, the mood was reflective, respectful — and celebratory. Claps and cheers met shouts of "Sold!" when the winning bid came from the room. Tears were shed by some still coming to terms with Lynch's death.

Synchronicity and synergy at the Peninsula hotel

Alex Koch, an actor and craftsman, scored an assortment of carpentry tools from Lynch's home woodshop. His woodworking served as inspiration for Koch when he picked up the craft some years ago. But Koch lost his projects and shop tools when his house burned down in the wildfire that the ravaged northeast Los Angeles County town of Altadena. 

Alex Koch scored some woodworking tools owned by Lynch, whose artistry extended to building his own furniture designs.

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"I'm rebuilding stuff, so I kind of wanted something meaningful," he said. It was one of several fires raging across LA County in January. Then, when Lynch died while the fires were burning, Koch said, "I wanted to get something that's like a piece of him."

He said he plans to gift some of the tools to friends who have helped him out during this bumpy time.

Jeff Leavitt, a fellow craftsman who builds guitars, said he felt "tingly" and grateful after his winning bid earned him a band saw and a drum sander. He said wants to use them in a way that will honor Lynch.

"I'm gonna be making some beautiful instruments with them," he said.

Leavitt sources his wood locally, from city streets and other urban spaces in the Greater Los Angeles area — a frequent backdrop in Lynch's films. He senses there might be a regenerative spirit to the changing of guards.

"To be using David's tools in a way that creates kind of like a Los Angeles growing instrument — I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of synergy going on with this," he said.

Having overheard Koch's hardship, Leavitt offered him to come by his studio "if you need to use a wood shop," he told Koch. "You could use that band saw." As strangers moments prior, the men had both been nervous that each another might be contending for the same lots, and one of them scooted to a seat farther away to ease the tension. 

Their acts of generosity were akin to how Lynch lived, according to author Huddleston.

"He was very generous with his time, he always came across as just very honest and direct in the way he spoke, and I think people really responded to that," he said.

Followers, not fans

Lynch's art moved people in a way that you can't necessarily understand intellectually, Huddleston said. "His work was a real emotional thing, and it touched people that way."

He insists their sincere affection for Lynch — and wanting to own something that he had owned — doesn't come from a place of idolatry.

"It's not some kind of slavish devotion and needing to kind of gain something from him," he said. "I think there's a sacred relic element to it — this was someone that they genuinely loved, in a way which transcends basic fandom." 

Plus, the guy had great taste. "These are things that you would want in your home," the author said.

George Griffith was a longtime Lynch fan before working with him on <em>Twin Peaks: The Return</em>, in which Griffith starred as Ray Monroe. He was outbid on one of the late director's espresso machines.

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George Griffith said he was outbid by a "serious player" online for one of Lynch's fancy Italian espresso machines. Griffith, a longtime Lynch fan before he got to know him personally, portrayed Ray Monroe in Twin Peaks: The Return, a 25-years-later series reboot.

"I love coffee, I drink it every day, I've had coffee with David, and I just thought — in addition to the ways that his spirit sort of visits me all the time — that it would be a nice way to just have him in my house," he said.

He thinks Lynch would've appreciated how the auction unfolded.

"I don't think that David wanted to have like a mausoleum kind of feeling," Griffith said. "I don't think he wanted it to feel like he was gone — because he's not and he won't ever be."
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