Peter Lilienthal refurbished the broken clock that has adorned the facade of 57 Park St. in Lee since 1991. "This clock might fall into that borderline between antique and sentimental," he said.
Peter Lilienthal sees potential where others see none left. “I hate to see good things go in the garbage,” he said. Now 68 and the proprietor of Good as Old Antiques Repair & Art Gallery in Sheffield, Lilienthal’s most recently refurbished the broken clock that has adorned the facade of 57 Park St.
in Lee since 1991. It turns out that he was helping a fellow lover of preserving old objects: Richard LaVigné, the co-owner of Knollwood Antiques, which opened at the site on Monday. Lilienthal has been in the business of repairing objects for 35 years.
After he helped a friend who owned an import business repair merchandise damaged during shipment, he developed a reputation as a good repairman. Word of mouth kept bringing him business. Peter Lilienthal is proprietor of Good as Old Antiques Repair & Art Gallery in Sheffield.
“We specialize in restoring things that can be very sentimental," he said. He says he was born with the ability to fix things. At 4 years old, when he fixed his family’s vacuum cleaner, his family knew he had a talent.
“I always just knew" how to fix things, he said. "And if I didn’t know it, I knew how to look it up.” He previously did repairs — mostly for antique shops — out of his home.
In 2016, he opened a store and began doing more repairs for.