In the beach town of Kihei, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, sits a warehouse full of treasures from millionaires’ colorful pasts.
“I would say there’s a million items in this shop,” 83-year-old owner David Ross told The Independent.
Ross’ store used to be called “Endangered Pieces” until he rebranded it as “Very Rich Dead People’s Things For Sale.”
The owner explained what inspired the eye-catching name.
“A guy was having a garage sale, and he called it ‘Dead People’s Garage Sale,’ so I picked up on that, and I called myself ‘Very Rich Dead People Things For Sale,’ and ever since I did that, my business tripled, because everybody wanted to see what the rich dead people had,” Ross said.
The warehouse holds more than 2,000 pieces of art — because, as Ross put it, “most rich dead people have a lot of art” — as well as more than 200 amethyst crystals, some of which are 10 feet tall, and more than 200 lamps.
Ross is especially proud of an almost four-foot, penis-shaped amethyst that he refuses to sell.
“Everybody likes looking at it and checking it out and taking their picture with it, so it’s pretty incredible,” the owner said.
When asked about the coolest antiques that Ross has collected in his 60 years in the business, a few items come to mind.
“I have this airplane wing that’s made into a dining room table, it’s from a 1939 DC-3 Gooney Bird, that’s pretty amazing too,” Ross said.
Ross said he also recently acquired five 18th-century life-size statues that resemble Chinese warriors.
“That’s pretty fascinating, but I could go on and on,” he said.
Ross’ shop has not just attracted locals and tourists but celebrities.
Musicians Steven Tyler, Mick Fleetwood, Paul Simon and Alice Cooper have all visited the store, and CBS Mornings host Gail King.
“Most of those people are regulars. They come in, they’re in there for like three, four hours, sometimes. Fleetwood spent half a day in there,” Ross said.
“They’ll buy a lot of stuff, and I’ll deliver it to their houses, and sometimes they have things to get rid of, and I end up acquiring some of their goodies.”
Those who want to visit the museum-like warehouse will have to pay a $2 admission fee.
“It weeds out some of the people that I don’t want in the shop,” Ross said, explaining that it’s a deterrent for some visitors who may try to steal items.
“Some people really get upset at it. They say, ‘I’m not paying $2 to come in.’ I go, ‘You know what? I’ll pay you $2 not to come in. I don’t care,’” the owner added.
Ross grew up in San Francisco where his family owned pawn shops. “That kind of got me interested in buying and selling items,” he explained.
When Ross moved to Hawaii in 1988, he started a moving company. When people used his services, they would ask him if he wanted to buy items they no longer needed, and he would then sell them. Shortly after, he opened his first antique shop.
Ross said he acquires the antiques he sells “many, many different ways,” including from people who buy a house already furnished – but not to their style; people who move to Maui and then realize they don’t have enough space for all their things and through people dying, of course.
“Since I started saying ‘Rich Dead People Things For Sale,’ I would get calls from all over the country where people say, ‘Look, my aunt just died in Maui, and we don’t want to come all the way out there from Baltimore. Would you be interested in buying her estate?’ And she has Maseratis, and she has all kinds of amazing antiques.’”
Ross said that he probably buys a lot more items than he sells, but that he has fun doing it.
“I have a big overhead, but I do okay. I gotta say, I do it for the labor of love. It’s fun,” the owner said. “I’m a skater, sometimes I put on my skates, and I’ll skate around the warehouse while I’m working.”
